Elliot Valentine Lee, Mel Hornyak - I Breathe In, You Breathe Out

Hao
Here are some sweets
Candies, apple
Honey from your bees
You don’t like sweets
Just salt and coffee
Lemon-flavored teas

If i can’t tempt you back with these
I’ll try with memory
This lantern bridge is made of words
Please follow them to me

I’ve always loved sweets
Sex, and sleeping
The pleasures of the earth
My mother said gods
Don’t care for pleasure
They seek a higher birth

But i’d rather come back as your cat
Or a worm inside your ear
Just so i could be with you
Somewhere very near
I wouldn’t want to be a god
Clouds are all they care about
When we fall asleep at night
I breathe in
You breathe out
Some days i come home
Sweating, weary
Itching for a fight
And then you touch me
Tender, golden
My chest pours out with light

And i don’t need to say a word
Don’t need water, food, or rest
Like a fish finding the ocean
My head dives to your chest
There are no thoughts to cloud it
No promises to doubt
When we fall asleep at night
I breathe in
You breathe out

Hao
And i wish i had a hundred words
To replace the few i said
How can i fear the teeth of the world
If the world is safe in my bed?

I’ve always been chased from place to place
By riots, or fire, or shame
I never asked why you left your home
Or taught you the tones of my name
Nothing of yours could frighten me
So why should you not know?
I let you think that i trust you less
And i let you let me go

(anthony, listening, takes a stick and kneels next to hao. józef begins to become more corporeal as hao and anthony sing together.)

Hao
You make me new sweets-

Anthony
You buy iced coffee-

Hao
With spices we shared

Anthony
You wait up at night-

Hao
You roast me a pepper-

Anthony
You hum when i’m scared

Anthony/hao
And you don’t need to say a word
I’d do the same for you
Passing favors back and forth
Making one life out of two
Why deny the sweets
You’d have a bitter life without?
When we fall asleep at night
(hao touches a hand to anthony’s wrist to stop him from singing)

Hao
I breathe in

(he waits.)

Hao
I breathe in

(he waits.)

Hao
I breathe in

JÓzef
(with great effort)
I breathe out

(hao looks up, finally seeing jÓzef for the first time, and collapses into his arms.)