68/365 Sestina for those who write them

We are creatures of reflex and recovery
One ear for music, the other for friends
Trading as currency the stanzas that make us swoon
Shivering in circles, straining through the thin exhale
of smoke for the sake of being known
In each moment, planning the moments to follow

Taking steps and missteps when feet don't follow
in close time, one-two, one two, the recovery
comes more quickly when the route is known
When we have seen the healed scars of good friends
Who will remind us to breathe and write, inhale, exhale
Let our diaphragms spawn the poetry that will make them swoon

The way that one first poem made us swoon
made us trace our fingers along the edges of moleskin, follow
the ink of our favorite pens as they exhaled
our passions onto crisp pages; cathartic recovery
that we will revisit, revise, and share with friends
and strangers to whom we will soon become a bit too well known.

Regret forever tells us we should have known
enough to unclench fists and breathe, so we would not swoon,
not stammer, not fear the very critique from friends
that we ourselves asked for, suggestions we intend to follow,
Relish the pain borne of healing and recovery
Rip of the band-aid and don't just gasp inward;  Exhale

It is not the deep breath that rewards us, but the exhale,
the first and best release of tension; we have known
since infancy to cry out, to sob, to sigh through recovery,
to build that drumroll, mount like the symphonies we are, to swoon
into certainty and the confidence that is to follow.
This will not happen in a vacuum, in the absence of friends.

Companionship and accountability are the best friends
of creation, of inspired work, of the slow and meaningful exhale
that will shape this poem and every stanza that is to follow
where meter and metaphor are the sweetest gifts known
where the hunger for perfect phrasing will make us swoon
when we hear it, exchanging more than one knowing glance in the recovery.

This is where my friends are, where I am known,
In the subtle exhale of an appreciative swoon,
The swift recovery, and the raucous laugh that will, surely, follow.