You Take My Breath Away

You take my breath away. I say this and I sigh. I say this and I fill my lungs with air. I exhale loudly. Freely. I feel my chest expand, my spine curve, my diaphragm reach its utmost extent and quiver, tremble, almost a yawn, almost a sigh and almost an orgasm. I exhale loudly as loudly, as I need to. As loudly I can now that you are watching me. I left the room to breathe freely. I left the room to explore my breath and how I have been holding it. I left the room to try and understand what it means to say you take my breath away. You are here now. I’m not sure why. You are not the faceless, nameless intangible protagonist, subject, object that I hide in my words, you are real and you are in my life. You are ***. I have named you. Now you’ve came out of the room to sit with me and I cannot breathe as loudly as I want or as freely as I want. I censor, I censor my breath and I’ve censored my words. I censor my words and I breathe at about 10% of my previous capacity. My diaphragm does not expand to its utmost extent. I breathe silently. You’ve taken my breath away.
I will not end this piece of writing here, hide the ugliness of myself, or hide the ugliness of you through literary dramatization and mystification. I will say this. You take my breath away. I hold it. I regulate it and I make it as quite and subtle as I can. I flare my nostrils, pull back my soft palate and slow it down. It’s my trade-off, so I can be near you. To breathe freely and fully means that you will be irritated, to curl up to you and let my breath come as it wants to, as loudly as erratically as it needs to, means that you will not want to be curled up next to me. That is the trade-off. We all come with our baggage and mine is that my desire to be near you takes precedence over my breath. In that way, you take my breath away.