Exhales And Inhales Poem by Luce Darwin

I am in some dead space,
some black mass
is constricting the flow
of oxygen, inhales and exhales
are unsteady but still.

You are the one last
breath I will take;
Exhaling and inhaling,
only for a pulsar
far away, yet I know
it's there, waiting
for me to break out
of this black mass
that won't let me
get a full inhale.

You are that pulsar;
hope I hold to when
my mind is too fatigued
to think of the answer.
When my body
grows ever weaker
under the strain
of loving but never knowing.

I will exhale and inhale
my last time for some
pulsar amongst this dead space.
Every word I said I meant,
even when I said
I wished you were not real.