you’ll never expect the feeling

to grip you by your shoulders and

wrap fingers around your wrists. it

breathes dark smoke into your throat

and you might feel like you’re dying

and that’s because you are dying- you

must die again before you can survive. 

you’ll thrash around and salt tears

might drip from your unseeing eyes

because you liked when you didn’t know

that this feeling existed. you liked being

dead because being dead was easier than

this. and it hurts like hell. it 

hurts to breathe for the first time

in your life- not just breathe molecules

of oxygen into needy lungs but to breathe

life into your corpse limbs and barely

awake mind. it hurts because it comes

like a storm and bowls you over and doesn’t

apologize for the beautiful broken mess it’s 

made. it doesn’t care that it’s changed

you but all you can think is what happened 

to me and what happened to the world. and

the silent explosion sends sonic whistles 

into your ears but after the ringing you’ll

find that you can hear everything now-

not just what you wanted to hear but what

the world has wanted to say to you before 

you were deaf and blind. it’s nice to have

five senses instead of none- and you don’t

think the pleasure is better than the pain

because the pain is real and alive and now 

so are you.