A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function

I used to think that if I loved hard enough and long enough passion would always win out like the way I loved cologne, venturing teenaged into congested malls, abusing testers only a salesperson surly enough inquiring if he or she could help me in any way, spitting the prices of even the smallest bottles of the scents I had slathered on, forcing me out in a cloud of confidence that I was the Calvin Klein Man, not the Old Spice Man, not the Zest Man, and certainly not the My Drafty House Is Warmed Badly by Kerosene Heaters Man impervious to my real life where I would sneak down in the middle of the night, passing snow collecting on the inside of the window sill, trying to descend the stairs silently to complete the night lying before the stove’s vents blowing sooty warm air deep into my sleeping lungs, clutching a broken lacrosse stick to intimidate rats so brazen our housecats accepted them as equal occupants until I exit those automatic doors, leave fountains where just out of range I envy white families tossing entire cigarette packs’ worth of what they call spare change, wishing for things they could already buy if they wanted laughing as those presidential faces fall sometimes up and sometimes down, all drowning in three inches of chlorinated well water return to the reservation where my sister- in-law embraces me later the same day, drawing deeply, saying she loves the scent of burned heating oil on men, that it reminds her of when she and my brother dated and she would hold him long in those last moments before allowing him to walk out her door, meander through snowy grooves, finding his way home while she looked out windows where ice crystals gathered on the proper side of the pane holding her breath as long as she dared, letting his presence seep out only when she could no longer bear, leaving him to be a vapor ghost on her window, a fog sure to vanish even before she turned from the window and here I am years later living in that same state, you miles away and I, knowing how presence disperses into air, wonder how long I can hold my breath.