HEAVE

I was breathing when I met you

I was lucid, and I was breathing

Not well, but enough to keep me moving

Enough to hold me down

And then you came and choked me

A slight form of breath play that I enjoyed

And I wanted more

So I let you absorb me slowly into your world

But one day, I woke up, and you were strangling me

Both hands around my neck with a dark look in your eyes

A glimpse of darkness I had never seen in you

And I struggled to catch my breath 

As I struggled with the harsh reality that I was indeed asphyxiated

I wondered, why would you do that? 

Why would you turn such a simple pleasure into a dark haze? 

Why not abandon it if it makes you feel uneasy? 

And as I felt myself become amorphous and flaccid 

As I felt myself growing numb and weary 

I realized that you felt guilty about our dalliance

The utter self-reproach you felt pushed you to project on me

I was just but a sponge to absorb and absolve your pertinence 

And now I don't know what to feel 

Or what to do

I am lying here, taking deep breaths, 

heaving and hurting 

You were supposed to be my emollient, 

but now you have become my undoing 

Ripping all my stitches and stabbing me afresh 

And yes, it seems harsh to describe what went on this way

But this is how I feel 

I was breathing fine, 

and you punched the air out of me and said that it was my fault 

for I was the one who took up this unholy creed

And once again, I am a slave to my own naivete 

As I was a slave to you