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CHAPTER 1

Squall

Exhale

When I finally exhaled,
releasing pent-up breaths, the pain and resentment tore from my seams like baby birds springing from their nests ...
and my soul soared.


Losing

I have never been able to understand how losing someone can make you feel so full of longing that your chest risks exploding with every forced breath.
Losing should mean gone or taken away, empty.
But instead, every pulse in my body incessantly screams his name. The past strangles me at night. It comes blanketed in remorse.
Hands of regret crushing my spirit. Waves of nostalgia knocking the wind from a chest that is much too full of heirlooms and knick-knacks.
I hold memories of me and you.


Vintage

I believe the pain we experience with endings is a tool.
We can use it either to rebuild or to tear ourselves apart, piece by piece.
I choose to re-purpose the unhinged parts of my soul.
I will let them shine. Rusty and antiqued.
I battled for them. Good versus evil. Me against myself.
I may look a little old and worn.
But, my God ... run your fingers over my ridges.
Feel my spirit pulse.
You will find character, resilience, and fortitude.


I Never Wanted to Change You

I do not want to change you.
Your sadness does not scare me.
If anything, it highlights the fact that you are real, and you feel things deep enough,
until they escape your heart and show in your eyes,
and I so desperately want you to feel me that way.


AWOL

He never really had a chance.
I have always viewed relationships through rose-colored glasses — the ones my father shattered the day he left.
I learned as early as a squalling newborn that even the ones who helped give life to your soul ...
eventually leave.


Window Shopping

He was a window shopper,
and that is a fine way to spend a relaxing Saturday afternoon, but my heart was tired of being peeked at.
My heart didn't want to be the reason for buyer's regret;
it wanted to be the reason. All his reasons.


Goodbye Dance

You think the pain goes away?
It does not.
It is always there, lurking.
It is powerful because it has been forged by your tears.
It feeds off your memories. It is waiting until it sees you dancing in happiness before it tries to cut in for a waltz.
Do not deny it.
Give it a turn
around your heart's dance floor.
You are stronger now ... you can handle the beat.
Hold it close. Remember the agony. Kiss it on the cheek, and kiss it goodbye.


Memory Bath

There are days I want to dip my soul in memories and let it soak.
Then there are other days when I am praying
they will all be washed away.


Visceral

He has wanderlust in his veins.
His heart is always seeking, filling up on the next adventure. And the most painful lesson I have had to learn is that you cannot tether yourself to a soul that is meant to fly.


The Artist

He dipped his hands into my soul, and finger-painted
hopes and dreams,
and fears and strengths, into a work of art.
So now it hangs in a time-suspended display, signed by a masterful talent, seeking the right home.


Nocturnal

You have lived in the dark for so long that you have forgotten;
a soul needs light
in order to grow.


Fairytales

I was spoon-fed fairytales and rocked on the knees of selfless love from birth.
Imagine my surprise when I had to learn the hard way that the world won't love you like that.
So, you grow up ... you face "reality,"
and every beat of your heart asks to go home.


Betrayal

It is in the constant murmur,
the echoes of never again,
the hum of betrayal. Vibrations so intense their frequency replicates my heartbeat.
It is in the insistent aching that you feel pain pin-pricking your spine, more so than the air filling your lungs.
Betrayal ...
is the emptiness you feel when you analyze the gaps that your heart stumbles over. It pauses — skips a beat,
and with every silent interval, the memories flood and the gaps widen, and betrayal hums.


You Want Him to Miss You ...

... to catch a scent on a sun-dappled spring day that reminds him of you ...
and you want it to cut him in half.
Bring him eye to eye with his weak knees,
with a machete to the heart. You want him to ache,
like you have done all winter.
You want him to endure what the absence of you feels like, and you want it to last for every minute hereafter because you are not someone who is easily gotten over.
And you want him to miss you.


Weightlifter

And my soul spoke to me one day. I heard her voice loud and clear, firm, and full of love.

You question your strength ...
and I stand by and watch in awe as you carry that heavy heart around.


Observation

She wants you to see things she has never shown you. She hopes you hear things she has never said.
She aches for you to spoon her heart outside of your bed.


Surreal

My mind is strong.
A steel trap.
I have conditioned myself to let nothing escape its confines. I harbor a soul filled with eons' worth of strength,
forged and scribed by the Universe. I am a celestial wonder,
an endurance hurdler. But when he touches me, moves in close ...
skimming my world with a gentleness I have never encountered before,
I feel a calming need to be still, to quit flaying my insecurities or trying to prove my worth.
I want the softness, I need the quiet. I need to absorb his essence,
the biting along my armor, and figure out how this being has become sustenance to my soul.


Emptiness

How do you explain the absence of a person to your soul? How do you break the news that it may never be whole again?


Invisible

The line between love and hate is never as faint as when someone chooses to leave you.


Recess

And he kept coming back.
Sadly, he was more dependable when away, and every time she was left to wonder for how long.
The signs were always there, mocking her heart.
Always knowing the desire would wane after he'd had a few bowls of ice cream.
His attention was that of a boy.
She kept hoping the next time he came back ...
he would be a man.

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Excerpted from "Abandoned Breaths"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Alfa.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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