Take me as I am, for there is nothing but that to have.

Stop.

Take a deep breath, I mean a really deep lungful of breath. Draw until you have filled your toes.

Nice? Did it calm you, did it make you want to use it to scream? laugh, shout? Did you want to keep hold of it and not let it go? Did it make you feel alive? Did you even do it?

WAIT!

Close your eyes. No peeking, just close them.

What can you see? Did it make you smile? Or give you a tight knot of regret in your throat? Did you just see blackness, or did your mind work where your eyes stopped? Do you tell yourself you're happy, even when you know really, it's not the truth?

Once more.

Say a word, just one word. Any single word you want to at all.

Go on, do it now.

Did you shout it? Whisper it? Did it make your skin tingle, was it just a passing word? Was it relevent, a feeling, a person, a time? Was it worth it? Did it conjure a myriad of images to flit through your mind? Or are you still just wondering what? Did you think about your word first?

The breath made me smile, and I wanted to let it slip from me on the whisper of the wind and carry away to places unknown. I saw endless sandy coastline of the purest white, soft and warm, with the bluest of waves cascading against the shore and stretching out as far as the eye can see, the sun shimmering from the crest of every soft wave.

I whispered life. Then I spoke it, then I screamed it to the winds for all and sunder to hear.

Do you care? I expect not.

Wait, Im not done, I know, I know...just once more.

Scream. No not like that, I mean...scream.

Again. Louder.

Did you scream in frustration, anger, confusion, excitment, happiness??