This last defiant breath
I will not release

without a struggle. To breathe it
would be to admit

I’m past resistance
and have surrendered

to easy despair
with the world and its 

grasp upon me, that I’ve begun
to interpret the velvet of

its grip on my throat as
less heinous than that

of an iron hand crushing
me swiftly into choke though

the end result will be the same:
my white-lit death. My tunnel

opening.  Even if I remain
alive after breathing, that moment will signify

my willingness to walk into
my own captivity to their New World —

so I fight, holding my breath
against that. If I die fighting, may it be

that my body will hold that breath
for the next fight, the next fighter,

then for the next fight and fighter
and all the ones after that;

not only for my world,
but for those to come.