I Am Only What They Breathe

I travel through all of your lives

From the first trembling gasp of beginning

To the last ragged exhale at the end of being

I will always be there

I'm shared across your lively laughter

Passed throughout your frightened screams

I move through secrets you wish to keep

Forever I'll be there, through daylight, through dreams

I am the salty breeze that meets the sea

The Amazonian fog no human will ever breathe

Traveling the world, beginning to end

I live through all, all lives through me

But the love I have won't forever last

As cities grow, polluted and gassed

From the once-great plains, to towers of glass

I surround it all, future, present, and past

I'm thinning, I'm choking, I'm dying

Why can't they hear how much I'm crying

They loved me once, and I loved them

Now every day, we near the end

I stay because I must

The invisible witness to humanity's lust

Beaten, betrayed, filled with dust

But still I can't leave

I am only what they breathe.