Alchemy of Air

I miss you. I miss you like how the sun misses the moon. I miss you like how the shore misses the tide. I miss you like how inhales miss exhales. I miss you like how I miss myself. I try to calm down. I try to find balance. I try to take a deep breath, but I can’t breathe. You took all the air and turned it into something else. You are the magician who plays with fire and dances in water. You are the alchemist with your alchemy of air. You, you are the accident; you are the mistake. I gasp, but nothing enters but the tainted poison you gave me. What have you done? The venom is seeping through, and I still can’t breathe. I am losing; I am lost, but you didn’t win. You are losing too; you’re lost too. I am inhaling nothing that could help me. I am intoxicated off the fumes that murder me. I am dying, and you’re too lost to notice. You’re too lost to care. I want to jump off to the dredges of what-used-to-be. I promised myself that I would never succumb, that I would throw myself into the sea of blackness before I would ever accept this. Somehow, I haven’t moved. I am standing on the edge, and I am completely still. I am battling wisdom and foolishness, and I am losing on both sides. Why am I not moving? I should be getting away from the toxins that are blending and mixing. I should be escaping the chemical reactions we keep setting off, but instead, I am an alcoholic that keeps drinking, keeps drinking. I am drunk. I am the tide reaching for the shore, and I am the sun chasing the moon, and I am the last exhale waiting for the first inhale. As I am collapsing to the ground, inhale-less and exhale-less, I am still holding out for the alchemist and trying to form the words, trying to ask if I ever took your breath away.