Ode to sickness (is not an ode, by the way)

Maybe it´s just me
but sometimes it´s
impossible to breathe

I don't know where all the air goes to some times, is as if it were impossible for me to take it in. I keep taking mouthful after mouthful of air, and it is as if it were water, too dense, too thick. And then my heart starts racing, pounding, my veins pulsating violently against my throat, against my skull, against my fingertips.

My vision blurs, going in and out of focus, and yet I have to keep on walking, on talking, on moving... as if my cells were not imploding.


Now come the impatient looks, all too knowing. They know something is wrong - but I’m still walking, it cannot be so horrible-. So it all suddenly seems shameful; my distress, that suffocating pain in my chest, throbbing with every desperate beat of my heart in its absurd desire to cope, to keep going.

Why won’t my heart give up? Why will it fight on? Nobody seems to be on his team, and the effort is never enough, the air won’t pass, the full of its strength won’t reach the core of me, it'll just keep on wearing me out, forever, under the disapproving eyes of the outsiders.