YOU DO NOT BREATHE ALONE

When you were a foetus,
you could not breathe by yourself.
So mother breathed for you.

Her breath was your breath.
Her blood was your blood.
Her life was yours.

There was a tiny hole in your heart
called the 'foramen ovale'.
Most likely it closed at birth,
when you took your first breath.

You screamed. You wailed.
You were in shock.
You were bruised, perhaps.
Sore, swollen, bloody, tiny,
you wept for your existence, 

grieved the loss of a womb.

You were exhausted,
but you were alive.

So you knew early on
that life was not all bliss and ecstasy.
It was pain, too. It was overwhelm.
It was loss.
But in the overwhelm, beauty.
And in the loss, love.
And hope. And discovery.

Friend, sometimes you need to cry,
and splutter, and scream,
and make a mess,
and forget the future, and old worlds.

And come to rejoice in a single breath. 
And the joyous beating of a holy heart.

To this day, you do not breathe alone.
~Jeff Foster