Sometimes, all you can do is breathe.

And breathe again.

You let the breath carry you,

because you cannot carry yourself.

You cannot find trust, so you just breathe.

Hope seems far away, so you just breathe.

And none of your usual distractions work.

So you just breathe.

You give yourself to life.

You find solace in not knowing.

You keep going, because the breath itself keeps going,

and you don’t know how.

You stop trying.

Or you become the breath itself.

You become air, the essence of things.

You become the vastness of space, feather-light afternoon clouds moving through infinite blue, playful evening birds on their way to destinations unknown, planets spinning melancholically in eternal night.

Crying, laughing, not knowing anything anymore.

You become all who have ever suffered.

You become all who have ever died, or fallen into ruin.

You touch that ancient Silence, born billions of years before Earth, rock solid amidst these changes.

Sometimes all you can do is breathe.

And breathe again.

– Jeff Foster