It feels like a ringing in your ears
That is so quiet, so high-pitched,
You don’t notice until it’s gone.
The sudden lack of something
So much a part of you
That you take it for granted.
Like the movement of your lungs.
You don’t need to think for it to happen,
It just does.

Only when it stops do you think
Of the motion you never questioned.

Even if you begin again, right then,
It is never the same.
You know it now:
The strain of muscles
You never thought to exercise
Until you knew how much you need them.
You will think of it,
The motion of your chest
Rising and crashing like waves on the shore,
And you will be in control of the seas
Even though they threaten to freeze,
To throw your world in disarray,
If you do not maintain their rise and fall.

But it takes more to hold them at bay
Than it will ever take
For them to do their thing.
Without you, if you forget,
They will remember and start anew
As soon as You are out of the picture.

I am still, waiting to breathe,
Warned of an end I can feel
Just beyond my sense of self
That calls to me
Even though I know it is easier to continue.

Like the taunting dare of my lungs
As I seize control of the air
Flowing inside my chest,
So to does this sodden lump
Lure me to an end we both know
Will never come to be,
If only to remind me of what
I once took for granted.