Waiting to be Held
May 2025

I woke up thinking about how to capture breath.
To suspend it.
To hold it.
To feel it move.
What would it mean to exist in the space of breath?
Is breath a semibreve or a quaver, or the rest at the end of a note?
Is breath the pause before a wave folds into itself, or is it the calm between two wave crests, and if so, how can I live there floating beneath the ripples?
In an empty windowless room, what shape would breath take: a pair of lungs, a circular hollow of a larynx, a gasp escaping from parted lips, an amorphous vapor,
a ghost, a shadow, a silhouette?
A rattling in the ribcage.
I cannot think about breath without thinking about the body.
But can I think about breath as something to be contained, so I can contain it, preserve it and pass it on to someone else,
like a tree passes its breath to every living creature, like a mother passes her breath to her child?
Can I carry this container inside of myself, in the space just below my diaphragm, so that my body, porous and permeable, can become a vessel to give breath where it needs to be given.
And there is so much that needs to be given.
Because so much has been taken away.

How can I speak about breath without speaking about the loss of it?

OLIVIA KAYANG

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