Concrete air cut and designed with Josephine in mind.

Her air 
a pile of letters on the kitchen floor.
Somehow,
she is to make sense of it.

A hidden message 
coded onto carbon, 
trauma,
let’s call her Josephine,
obscurely imprinted on her DNA.

Josephine makes her appearance now
in the spoken mess - 
this heap of loose cut words
heaved from the buried deep.

She chooses to take ownership
and swallows Josephine back in.

Shoulders hunched over, 
she holds Josephine close and still.
Gives her love and reassurance
she is worthy.

Slowly, she releases Josephine
back out.

A string of connected letters,
articulated intentionally.
Purposefully posed.

Concrete air 
cut and designed 
with Josephine in mind. 

My breath
may originate from chaos,
but I choose to breathe out peace.

Notes

Whose air are you really breathing out? Yours? Someone else’s? Pause and recognize the trauma you might have inherited and the air you’ve spent your life breathing in. How might your ancestors’ experiences live through your own? How might you take ownership and flip the script?