Breaths Taken...

A cough takes more breath
than lungs can fill
empties me out
 and empties me still
as I'm forced into gasping and grasping
to hold my breath and my balance
another cough follows
then another, another, another...
until both my balance and breath
are evicted
though I continue desperately
gasping and grasping
but my lungs and legs keep collapsing

the air is forced
out and away
as it's stolen along with my words
(the words I can't say)
and their very meanings
that I can't attempt to convey
my thoughts, my life taken
in increments of all these lost breaths
granting victories to deaths

it's a common convulsion
it's a natural erosion
for life is in dying
and then in decay
this life in each breath
that's taken away
taken by forces
 of wonder
 or time
unable to take them back
and too seldom being taken aback
as these breaths are so ever taken
even if taken away

by coughs or by wonder
in each one
it's the same
with our breaths
we are taken
taken
away