Since that first moment of awareness— maybe seven, maybe nine years old, lying in bed, suddenly conscious of air moving in and out, the strange automatic miracle I’d never noticed before— how many breaths have passed? Millions, surely. Countless inhalations and releases, most forgotten the instant they occurred, background music to a life lived forward. But then the gasps— those sharp interruptions when I forgot to breathe entirely. The gasp when he said come with me, lungs seizing with joy so pure it felt like drowning in light. The gasp when they called my name from the stage, and time became elastic, unreal. The gasp when the phone rang at 3 a.m. with news that changed everything. The gasp when words fell like stones between him and me, cutting deeper than intended, leaving me hollow, airless. The gasp when I realized I wasn’t who I thought I was, when the mirror showed someone I didn’t recognize, when life humbled me so completely I had to learn to breathe all over again. How many times have I sat in deafening silence, hearing only the sound of my own breath— after arguments that left the apartment too quiet, after text messages that ended everything, after moments when the world tilted and nothing made sense anymore? That conscious breathing, suddenly loud as thunder in rooms that used to feel safe, in spaces between heartbeats when shock lives, when fear makes a home in your chest, when numbness spreads like fog and even breathing feels like work. And the slow breaths— those deliberate draws of air heavy with wanting. Breaths caught and held while watching someone move across a room, breathing that stutters with longing so fierce it rewrites your pulse. The way breath changes when desire takes over, becomes something animal, something that tastes like copper and honey, like the edge of a cliff, like everything you’ve ever wanted and couldn’t name. I wonder about the last one. Will I know it’s coming? Will it be sharp with pain or soft with surrender? Will someone hold my hand, or will I be alone with this breath that has carried me so far? Will I count it, the way I’ve learned to count the important ones— the first breath after crying, the held breath before jumping, the shared breath of a kiss, the stolen breath of laughter that catches you off guard? Maybe the last breath is just like all the others— automatic, unremarkable, one more note in the song I’ve been humming without realizing since I was seven, since I was nine, since I first noticed I was breathing at all.