how she has shared it with me for all of my existence
I used to think when she sighed in exasperation
I inhaled her frustration, and blew it out as stubbornness
for her to repurpose and the cycle would continue when we were apart
I thought about all places she breathed, wondered
if her happiness or concern could reach me
maybe all breath trickled into the atmosphere
the same way all water pooled into oceans,
and every breeze was a wave intermingled with human emotion
I hoped my mother’s breath traveled far
so I could know about all the places she sighed in secret
because of some burden she refused to share,
I could comfort her the way she desperately
needed by simply exhaling
I used to lay my head on her rising and falling stomach
to feel the warmth of her, hear her blood churning, her heart pumping
when I remember those moments, I feel fear,
like sitting under a tree on a silent, sunny day,
breathing in what their leaves exhaled apathetically
I now take into consideration how the plants process
all our carbon dioxide, they refine our jagged sentiments
in their own cycle only incidentally related to ours
the world will continue to breathe without humans,
without my mother and me and our anger and love colliding
when we’re apart nothing is connecting or comforting us
we have nothing but our thoughts and the hurt we inflicted
throbbing like fresh bruises.
Leïssa Romulus was born in Haiti and immigrated to the U.S .at six years old. She is a senior at Emerson College studying Writing, Literature and Publishing, a poetry editor for The Emerson Review, and an aspiring poet.