The Weight of the Breath

There is a moment before the scream, or the song, or the hunger. It is the moment when the jaw unhinges and the throat opens to the air. We spend our lives trying to keep our mouths shut, to hold the interior world inside, to keep the heat from escaping into the frost. We are taught that to be open is to be vulnerable, to be exposed to the biting wind. Yet, there is a strange honesty in the yawn. It is not a request for attention. It is a biological surrender, a brief bridge between the predator and the void. In the deep woods, silence is not the absence of sound; it is the presence of something waiting. We watch the creature stretch, the teeth bared not in malice, but in the simple, weary necessity of being alive. What is it that we are trying to keep inside ourselves, and what happens when we finally let it out?

Kurien Koshy Yohannan has captured this quiet surrender in his image titled Yaawwnnn… It is a reminder that even the most formidable strength requires a moment of rest. Does this stillness make you feel closer to the wild, or further away?