I am air. I am a slight breeze with a hint of a tornado. I breathe in soft words for kindness, but deep down my beliefs are more pure, consistent, and blunt. I hold back my true feelings for the sake of others. You cannot capture me, not with any of your senses. You cannot see behind the wall that I have built up around myself. You have not felt the way I have felt, always freezing, filthy, damaged. You cannot see the things that I have seen, and I hope your eyes never catch a glimpse of it. You have not tasted the bitter words that have spilled out of my mouth, like uncontrollable vomit. It happens when I am alone, in bed, at three in the morning. Lastly, you have not heard the names my loved-ones have called me in the middle of their drunken enterprises. I’ve felt invisible in a crowd of a thousand. While everyone played with their friends among the gravel-filled pit of my despair, I sat below and looked for homely rocks in the cool shade by myself. That was just the beginning, but I learned to adapt. I moved away from my little brick home in the middle of nowhere. I learned to flow happily as a slight breeze. I no longer felt the need to push over trees, when I could just as easily flow through their leaves. I’ve been purified; the smog in my climate has cleared, with the growth of new plants that I had once tore down. The clouds that hung a little low, have lifted, finally allowing me to breathe. I no longer gasp for the need of something, because I am everything that I have ever needed. I was just blinded by my heavy winds. I am still air, maybe just a little less polluted.