The Trapped Breath (Ikuku Mara Na Onya) Poem by Emeka GOC

The Trapped Breath
(Ikuku mara na onya)

The air is dull like the blurred floor
Breathing used to be free like a door
Unstoppable like a floods tour
Then came three false friends and four

Three houses stand within the chest
Where stolen air can find no rest.
The first is Asthma, young and tight
A sudden thief that strikes at night

The walls are sensitive but fraud,
They swell up when the dust is loud
A sudden spasm, clamp, and squeeze
A child's desperate, high-pitched wheeze
Difficult even for just a hies

Yet when the rescue puff is deep,
The locks give way, the airways sleep;
The gates fly open, wide and free,
A temporary liberty.
A temporary freedom indeed what a pity

The second house is COPD,
A slow, relentless tragedy.
Built from the ash of years of smoke,
A heavy, gray, permanent yoke.

The structural walls are worn and thin,
The air sacs ruined deep within
Needing a deep, deep wash in sitting.

No magic puff can quite restore
The open space that stood before;
It does not shift, it does not bend,
A steady downhill to the end.

The third is Bronchiectasis, scarred,
Where open tunnels lose their guard.
No tightening clamp, no narrow wall,
But flabby tubes that stretch and fall.
They widen out, too weak to clear,
And trap the floods from year to year.

A heavy, pooling, daily sea
Of thick and foul purulent phlegm,
Where hidden bacteria start to bloom,
And constant fevers bring their gloom.

The first one clamps, then lets it go.
The second burns the tissue low.
The third expands and floods the floor.
And none can find the exit door.

What do one do to escape lungs cold
How to escape being a smoker sold
From peer, university cult, teenager parapet
They control smoking circle,
Including residues of plastic pipes
Ikuku anaghi ama na onya
The trapped breath is at last