tachypneic
by Adie Fecker
i am worried about my lungs
what they had to inhale
what I pray will chemically neutralize
how my heart is the drum
beating poison into pieces
the rise
of my diaphragm tachypneic
off rhythm with my lungs
a poor dancer even before adoption
before I was homesick
asthma was in the only milk
option
from birth were instructed
to metabolize hate
into smallness into silence into
vocal cord dysfunction
a barely detectable break
a clue
today I taught myself about
the flapping vocal fold
the near suffocation of loud singing
that lets the poison out
how my song still glides on top a
small wing