When I moved to Seattle, I stopped breathing.
My body tensed to hold its shape at every moment and granted my lungs room for little more than feeble panting. I rarely sang; I couldn’t through the anaphylaxis that cinched my throat ever more closed: choking, clawing, collapsing. Gravel grew in the walls of my esophagus building grit into my voice, straining the chambers I had once bathed so dotingly in tenderness, suppleness, calm. I used to boom unburdened, burst from the gut and bellow a mile, open channel like a beacon. I used to coo so softly and sweet, an effortless crystalline theme never far from the tip of my tongue. I had an instrument oiled with care, tuned in confidence, wielded with vigor and joy and ease.
But when I moved to Seattle, I stopped breathing.
I became a mirage of myself, half known, mostly hint. I feared my size, so I cut it down, disallowing myself to fill fully. My neck became a fissure for hiding, my ribs inflexible barricades mistaken as safe; I held in and in and in with every muscle and was never able to inhale. The roundness of my voice has gone. The power of my voice has waned. The clarity and movement of my voice have been neglected.
I don’t know how to breathe without the presence of violent heat. All of this water and all of this — all of this — green have infected me. I’ve grown asthmatic with anxieties. I’ve forgotten the feeling of big belly, suck deep from the sky, stop only at brimming, and let loose like canon fire. Untethered. Unrestricted. Unafraid.
I seek a return from self-restraint.
I’m trying to slip my body back into relaxation. I’m searching anatomy’s map for locations where my breath is held hostage. I’m negotiating with terror cells. I don’t want to be this small. I don’t want to be this sore. I don’t want to feel so scathed.
If you see me but do not see me breathing, remind me.
Remind me that my voice is not a casualty of the Sound.
