Breathe | Claire Beaumont

I feel the cusp of unformed emotions bubbling up in my throat. They threaten to spill out at inopportune moments. A throwaway phrase, a hand gesture that is more forceful than it needs to be. Like the air I breathe, I gulp them down, and grimace at their sour taste. But then I see her. Still; non performative. The light shifting across her pillow and the contours of her sleeping form. In exhaustion, she finds solace. The clouds distort the sunlight that ebbs and flows in the room; a noiseless commuter with no place to be or time to be there. I hope- pray- for the sky to open up. First one raindrop. Tentatively, another follows. Then another. And another. And another. I turn away, and for just a moment, I can breathe again.