Phantom Highs

By Anoushka Sinha

To define a breath is to make you breathless.

Shapeless.

An anomaly of the lowest order,

Just at the edge of life but never truly touching the finishing line.

You take that swig, that soft, tainted puff,

And then you collapse on the toilet seat, blowing air like bubbles.

Do you call it worship?

A twisted sacredness that has your inspirations in its grasp?

Choke now, breathe later.

A motto engraved unto a mossy tomb, scented with cedar;

Spices from places too good to be true.

Another whiff, no high, no low,

Just the scent burning the back of your throat.

Open your mouth, don't let the grey leak,

Hold it, hold it, hold... and then like whistling against a wound,

Let its spirit swirl past your lips and into the air.

There is no sane explanation for what has enslaved you now.

How it unscrews your mind to like the idea of a suckled breath.

All conditioning thrown to the hellish storm outside,

While you sit idle, knowing what you're doing is wrong,

And how you've never been wronger than this.

But all you do is take another drag to help it,

Watch as the bathroom turns hazy.

Waiting for the doorbells to tell you when to finish buds.

Listening for the dogs to remind you of your reality.

While your conscience slips into a perfect oblivion,

Where right and wrong don't exist.

Where you're you and not your flesh.

Hidden from the patterns, probable machinations,

Faithless hopes, and overtly reliant people.

Perfectly isolated from the truth of it all.

Constant.

Unchanging.

Superimposed, between facts and fiction.

As the life you feared dreaming about edges closer,

Kissing your knuckles,

Smelling burnished heaven between your fingers, on your mouth,

Giving you a knowing look.

You promised you wouldn't do this, and maybe that's what makes it fun.

Maybe that's why you long for it, starve to get just another taste.

Between movie breaks, before lunches, at the break of dawn.

Just another inspiration, taking it in, before you're gone.

Gone from the perverse safety of your homely walls.

From the bathroom that saw your worst.

Just one last whiff, like a mirage of hope,

A dastardly difficult illusion of harmony,

Until it becomes your new religion,

Your state of absolution.

Something only you know and no one else does.

And stereotypically, there's a thrill to be had here,

But you'd rather smoke it away too.

Just how you breathe out your life,

Leaving room for not words, colour or people.

Not even the ones in your mind.

Just you, with the rolled up companion,

Your laughter fading into coughs– too hoarse.

Only you, trapped by the fever-dreamesque mint tiles.

You, and nothing more.

By Anoushka Sinha