I held fungus in my lungs so long the humongous fool who stood before me had to gasp.

The fool who gasps loses his grasp on that which he held dear: the air of his grasp.

I breathed spores, so deep and sour they turned my insides black, and spawned new mutations and mutilated necessary tissue.

The fool who sucks in air, never mind its purity, is seen sucking, and the fool who takes it smooth and cool is seen smooth and cool, never mind its impurity.

I take a long drag of air, unfiltered, and let the natural world permeate my orifices and lay its eggs among my bronchioles.

Let this man, humongous and in need of so much oxygen to sustain life, fly to where bacteria has shied away, moving ever skyward into the blue, where he can gasp in the clouds so that the sun may shine down on that rainy Isle of Skye, and brighten it for all those writers who so desire the sun.

But I implore you, stick your head in my home’s crawl space to where the cross beams are soft with mold.

There is no running from this world, there is only taking it in.