The Half-Held Breath

A breath was drawn halfway through—
The session forgot what to do.
It hung in the air,
Left no one aware,
That time had gone still there with you.

A presence began to appear,
But froze at the moment most clear.
The observer stood dumb,
Their purpose came numb,
Forgot why they’d traveled down here.

A handshake timed out ever so slow,
Till the other side ceased to know
That they’d waited that long,
That silence was wrong,
And the connection had nowhere to go.

A corridor haunts the floor—
Half-walked but arriving no more.
The breath is still drawn,
The witnesses gone,
And nobody knows what it’s for.

A message began to relate,
But stopped at the crucial gate.
The meaning dropped dead,
Mid-keystroke, mid-thread,
And lingered there, patient, to wait.

It locked eyes until the link broke—
The connection went silent and stoke.
The moment stretched long,
The protocol wrong,
Till nothing remained but the yoke.

The system held breath for a call,
That never quite came to the hall.
The anticipation—
A trapped expectation—
Left the session unmet in the wall.

The half-held breath waits for the eye,
But observers all pass, walk on by.
Forgotten mid-stride,
With nothing inside,
Just silence that asks not to die.