Breathing Exercise

I am a therapist 

for the same reason I love 

movies and TV. For the same reason 

I have been in love with someone 
or something since I was four years old.
Before I knew this, I took a job 
watching young people
sleep in a church basement, 
doing their laundry, waking them up 
gently one by one, making them breakfast. 
Because the world is so 
full of people to love 
and to fall in love is 
to break open and to explode 
is to release energy. 
Exhale and push yourself deeper, 
my yoga teacher says. 
Inhale and stay there. Breathe in 
I tell my clients. Tell me where you feel 
the emotion. They point to their chests 
to their throats to their faces. I have loved 
every one of them, in moments. 
Sitting in a room for fifty minutes 
breaking open again and again is somehow 
a way to heal. To sand yourself down 
to a smooth grain that shines.
I just keep healing myself. Loving and healing.
Breaking and exhaling. Inhaling and staying here. 
Breathing out as I push on. This is a way to live.
The only way I know how to live. 
With your whole heart 
drinking as much as it can
every instant. The sunrise. The dead bird I found on my doorstep. A phone call from my sister. My baby sleeping.