Asphyxiated

You take oxygen for granted.

I’ve seen you running the rat race of your life;

You consume oxygen like you blink your eyes

Or shift your weight,

Partaking of God’s gifts

Without the slightest notion of gratitude.

Your chest rises and falls to the beat of a song

You have never listened for,

Dancing to a tune you have never searched for.

You have never questioned

When you will taste the life-giving stream again.

You do not know what it is like

To feel your lungs burning,

To feel fire coursing through your body,

And to wonder if you will live to take another breath;

You cannot even imagine what it is like

To see the air above you—

Yet know it is so far out of reach—

And to long for it with a passion

Beyond what words can describe.

The sharpest pangs of hunger don’t cut as deep

As starving lungs’ thirst for oxygen.

I am a whale.

When I consume oxygen,

I feast on it and celebrate,

For I know the blessings of every breath.

I know

What it is like to exist without oxygen.

I know.

I know

What it is like to take one last ecstatic breath,

And then to dive into the depths of the sea.

I know

What it is like to leave the oxygen behind me,

Not knowing if I will ever taste the air again.

I know.

Many of my missions take me

One thousand three hundred feet

Below air

(Yes, I’ve counted).

This is deeper than you can comprehend.

Light from the sun can barely reach here,

In the “twilight zone”,

Making this an eerie world

Full of darkness,

Unspoken fears,

And not a breath of fresh air.

And I go even deeper.

At times I have gone

Ten thousand feet below oxygen.

This depth is the midnight zone,

Where there is no light at all,

Only blackness so dark

I can’t see anything. 

I can’t even see

The enemy that I tangle with—

Here I fight with squid fifty feet long,

Squid so huge

You would consider them sea monsters.

Here I fight the darkness.

I know

What it is like to have no light

And no air.

I know

What it is like to be here

In the land of midnight,

And despair.

I know.

I know

What it is like to feel my lungs burning.

Ninety minutes without oxygen.

You think ninety minutes of exercise

Is more than you can handle;

I spend ninety minutes fighting to the death

In the darkness,

Without the slightest breath

Of life’s richest elixir.

I know.

I know

What it is like to climb ten thousand feet

For a breath of oxygen.

Every single foot

Is a fight of torture.

I know

What it is like to finally

Get my first glimpse of light and hope,

But despair at the distance

That still lies before me.

I know.

I know

What it is like to finally reach the fresh air.
I know

What it feels like to burst

Into a celebration of relief.

I know

What it is like feast on oxygen,

The best buffet God has ever set before man.

I know.

I know

What it is like to hunger for oxygen,

But I have tasted, and lived.

There are those who never reach the surface,

Who die trying.

I have seen them, and I know.

I have seen orphans who crave love.

I have seen the raped young woman,

Terrified at the cage she is trapped in.

I have seen the young man whose life

Is broken in the darkness.

I have seen all these

And more,

Crying out for love,

Crying out for oxygen.

I know.

And I weep.