The Weight on the Chest

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a long breath in, held, and let go)
You cannot move. Let's begin there, plainly.

[Verse 1]
The body switches the muscles off before the mind goes down.
That is the design. That is the safety catch, and it is a good one —
it exists so you do not act out the things you dream,
so you do not run down the stairs at four in the morning.
And now and then the mind comes up before the catch releases,
and you are awake inside a body that has not been informed.

[Chorus]
The weight on the chest. That is what it is called
in every language and in every century that has a word for it —
the mare, the hag, the old woman, the thing that sits and presses,
and every culture drew it, and every culture named it.
The weight on the chest. It is your own breathing.
It is the diaphragm working alone, and it is not a visitor.

[Verse 2]
Because the muscles you use to breathe deliberately are off,
so the automatic ones continue, shallow and unhelped,
and shallow breathing feels exactly like being pressed,
and being pressed, in the dark, awake, feels like being held down.
That is the entire mechanism. That is genuinely all of it.
And knowing it does help. It does not fix it, but it helps.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
And if it comes tonight — it probably will not, but if it does —
you do not fight it. Fighting it extends it. That is the cruelty.
You move one finger. One. The smallest one you have.
The catch releases from the edges, not from the middle,
and a toe or a fingertip will bring the whole thing down,
and it lasts less than a minute, and then it is simply over.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(the breath, easier now)
One finger.
There. You see. One finger was enough.