The Alchemist

Breathing fire isn't very hard. Breathing water is practically simple. Breathing air is an underrated science. No one breathes the earth, and yet we all seem fool enough to try.

In my chest is a lab of alchemy. I've made flame and fury there, and sang songs to chill and to soothe and to heal and to hurt and to boil and to simmer. I have within me a forge, a place of construction. I consume, and within me, things are consumed. I breathe, I transform, and I exhale. I am the process and the function and the form. I am the mold.

In my belly, I burn away impurity. In my lungs, I take the life from all around me, and I breathe out something coarse and alien. Even this is breath to another, and in this way, my pollution is kind. I create waste, and I feed the earth. The waste of my lips feeds the sky and feeds the dreams of my sisters and my brothers.

I breathe fire, and I breathe it out. I eat passion whole and spit up waves of scathing thought and dream and rhetoric. Heat is the creation of motion, and I make the world move.

I breathe in water, and I breathe out something deep and soothing. I fill the empty. I quench, I heal the parched and the dried and the wounded. Liquid is something that rushes until bounded. I am the fountain and the funnel both.

I breathe in air, and I breathe out truth and lies. I whisper, and mountains shudder. I shout, and a heart whimpers. I am the liar and the priest and the god and the beggar all. Wind tells us every story we will ever know. I am the man who chooses the stories.

I will breathe the earth, as will you. It will bring the forge to rest. Until then, do not eat the earth. Do not breathe it in. Do not wish it ill, for it will be your comfort one day.

If you could not breathe the earth, one day you'd find the fire and the water and the air rushing out of the holes in you. You'd never contain a thing, and hollow, you would rust and wither. The earth keeps us whole, even as we go into a complete and flawless silence.

We are all these things. I simply know the names of all of these. I simply know enough to tell you how to breathe.