The sound of a desperate man blows hard

Across his chest in great heaving waves

The lungs that lie and flare

The starving eyes

That burrow into sockets deep

The hungry beast that can never be satisfied or sated

Rubs his hands in anticipated delight

In his lust for those close to death

Ultimately lost among the stubborn cries and pleas

Of rusty skin and bone that billows

That knows neither light nor dark

The last grasping clasp of finding life

Where it is not known to exist

That pushes and paws

Among earthly mores and wants

That which all others take for granted

Where the air is thick and rich there on easy street  

Completely out of reach

 

And so, he cloaks his eyes and sighs

His chest sinks

In his mind he has said goodbye

To world and life

But his heart does not believe the time is right

And impossibly the beast is fed

As he sucks and fills the empty bags in his chest

In out in out

His eyes open and he stares not into the abyss

But the gasping desperate cries

Of a crowd of others on a beach

As he chokes and releases a pocket of the ocean

And sits up to claps oohs and ahs

And the clear relief of she who sits beside him

Saying welcome back