Count Each Breath

Maria James-Thiaw

Count Each Breath

First published by Wild Ink Publishing LLC 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Maria James-Thiaw

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Maria James-Thiaw asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

First edition

Illustration by Abigail Wild

Illustration by Noah Baia

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Oh, please. Those things come back negative for, like, seven years before they’re positive.

~ my well-meaning orthopedic surgeon.

I dedicate this collection of poetry to all the enigmas: the women who suffer from invisible ailments that take years to diagnose.

I would also like to thank those medical professionals who listen to their patients, treat us as individuals, and take time to solve problems, even when we don’t fit the textbook model.

Contents

Foreword

Dispair-ities

Locked Down

Rise up

About the Author

Also by Maria James-Thiaw

Foreword

I complete this book in the minutes before the ball drops New Year’s Eve, 2020. Tonight, New Year’s Eve is different. There are no revelers in Time Square. Those that are out, don masked faces to protect others from sickness. My family and I stay in, peering through windows as the neighbors explode huge fireworks in their backyards.

This is the year we’ve been beaten by the environment, the political climate, historic injustices, systematic inequities, and especially a deadly pandemic. I feel every blow we’ve collectively taken, but no matter how much time I have to breathe, I will breathe poetry into the world.

This collection is one tick priming a tock on the face of this disastrous pandemic. It is a time capsule, telling the future who we were. Thank you for sharing this moment with me.

Dispair-ities

Rage

The day

I thought I was dying

I decided

to carefully fold up my somedays,

keep them tucked in a trunk

in a