Sometimes I marvel my air filter. I imagine that it sits there and the air flies in, as if drawn by a magnet. Through the filter, the air shakes off the dirt accumulated through days, months, years, and then it flings out all clean, shedding weight.

Does the air feel now pure as it circulates around the room, free as a bird, pure as a new baby’s bottom as it swings toward me. Into my nostrils into my own personal filter and down into my lungs where it does some chemical reaction that helps me body live?

Then, what has the air witnessed? Has it swirled around above the lies that we tell? The lies we tell to others and ourselves? The secrets that we see and swear never to tell a single soul until one day while in the bathroom, guilt and shame creeps up and open the door?

What does the air know?

I sit in my bed, resting against a pillow and the hard wall. This wall scratches easily, marks from shoes, from things that touch the wall. The air brushes against it too, but it does nothing. The air is a silent, gentle partner. Neutral, willing, soft, gentle. It never does anything. It only goes where the wind blows. It vibrates for sounds. It provides the oxygen and carbon dioxide that we, plants, animals need. And it moves up and down the temperature.

Swirling with no care in the world.