what is the air that I breathe?

is it solitude
  or reminiscence
  or longing
  or puissance?

is it a striving for excellence
  or a competing against manic self-defeat through over-effort?

is it stale air
  or invigorated by the ions of people’s overflowing passions
  and outpourings of love into each other?

is my air the refuse of yours
  or the investment of yours?

will my exhale stimulate anyone
  or clog others’ lungs
  or be merely irrelevant?

will my breathing be marked
  and gauged
  and evaluated
  and channeled through vigorous systems of measurement
  and critical yet unbalanced non-holistic survey
  by the recognized elite
  of modern western medicine and psychology?

or can it be
  at least
  quiet.
just breathing in and out
without any particular self-reflexiveness.
without pensive application of insight and $20 words.

if so,
  this poem
  ends
  now.

Copyright 2002, Stephen Buckley
08.14.02, 1000pm