I Breathe Anyway
I built walls
not to keep people out
but to hold myself together.
I learned to keep my voice steady
while my pulse sprinted.
I learned to smile
without handing over my heart.
I stacked my reasons.
Bruises hardened into blueprints.
Silence became a room
I could live inside.
Walls work.
They block the wind,
keep danger out.
But they dim the light,
thin the air.
Yet something in me—
stubborn, unfinished—
turns toward the light.
I open a window
The cold rushes in, clean and alive.
My lungs ache.
I breathe anyway.
Lynne Curry
Curry has published six poems, the most recent in 2025
(Prosetrics [publication pending], The Big Window Review and Café Lit);
twenty-two short stories, the ten most recent in 2025 (three in Literary
Garage; two in Suddenly and Without Warning; and one each in Big Picture
Review, Café Lit, CommuterLit, freeflashfiction and 365tomorrows); 2024
(The Sunlight Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, CafeLit and Bright Flash Literary
Review); 2023 (The Big Windows Review); 2022 (After Dinner Conversations) and 2021
(101 Words); two articles on writing craft (Authors Publish) and six books,
including Navigating Conflict and Managing for Accountability (BEP), Beating
the Workplace Bully (AMACOM) and Solutions.