oxygen therapy

Hi there, sophiesangel! I'm in a reviewing mood today, so let's get into it. I'm going to go through the whole poem, then summarize with some closing thoughts.

there is too much left to say.

i bury my neck in the folds of your sweatshirt
i breathe you in and
i breathe you out.

A decent start. The first line makes a solid "thesis statement" of what to expect from the rest of the poem: the speaker is going to tell us the things they want to say out loud but can't. The second stanza has some nice imagery. I find myself a little uncertain if the speaker is with the love interest in this scene (like a flashback to when they were together) or if they're smelling this sweatshirt long after the love interest is gone, breathing in the remnants. This is something that could be clarified with a little bit more story here.

the truth is
i would say
whatever you’d want me to
i’d force it from my lungs
like an exhale

Not a whole lot to say here. I like these lines. They're a tad melodramatic, but that feels very fitting for the voice of this poem. One thing I'll say here is that I feel like "exhale" is the end of this thought and should end with a period/stanza break before the next few lines.

if
it led me to a hospital bed.
i’d cut all the wires
and take a fist to the system
because the only life support
i want is
you.

Okay, we're really ramping up the drama with this metaphor. Again, I like it. It feels fitting and gives me a bit more imagery to cling to than the previous lines.

Now, let's talk about line breaks. The best part of writing free verse is that you can end the lines wherever you want. The worst part of writing free verse is that you can end the lines wherever you want. So how do you decide? Keep in mind that the reader is mostly going to remember the end words, so those are the words you want to pack a punch. End on the words that create an image, that tell the story. You do this quite well with the lines "bed", "wires", "system", "support." You break this rule effectively in the last two lines..."is" is a weaker ending word to end on, but "you" is a very strong one, so I think the choice is justified. Though perhaps "i want/is you." would also work, drawing emphasis to the speaker's wanting.

Where I think this doesn't work is the one word line "if." That's a weak word by itself, and it's caught between two stronger lines that, in my opinion, don't connect that easily. The act of saying what the love interest wants to hear is separate from the imagined consequences of saying those words. So, I would end the first stanza as "like an exhale," then start the next with "if it led me to a hospital bed" (all one line).

and though i was never yours to need,
at least
i was your favorite.
your oxygen therapy,
your
almost embrace.

These...aren't bad lines, but they're kind of confusing in context. "I was never yours to need" suggests that the speaker doesn't/never actually cared about the love interest, even though we just read two stanzas about how emotionally/physically dependent they feel on the love interest. The next few lines muddy the waters--"i was your favorite/your oxygen therapy" suggests that the love interest did/does reciprocate the speaker's feelings (though it sounds toxic and codependent on both ends), while "your/almost embrace" suggests the exact opposite, that they didn't actually return those feelings. Personally, reading the rest of the poem, I think the second scenario is the case, that our poor speaker is deluding themselves if they think the love interest felt/feels the same way.

you never called me yours,
but with your arm around me
in an almost
embrace
you said i was your favorite,
your oxygen therapy.

This is one of many possible re-wordings, but this is more internally consistent. It's clear from the outside that the speaker is being led on, that the love interest is saying grandiose things without actually getting closer to the speaker.

you clutched me like
you were going to forget me
if i wasn’t “there” enough.

I'm a little confused as to when this is happening in the story. Is this from before the breakup, or in the same scene as the speaker seeing the new lover? If it's the first one, I might move this up where we have the speaker breathing in the sweatshirt, if that's supposed to be a scene from when they were together.

But, upon further examination, I think this actually goes with the almost embrace, like they ran into each other kind-of literally, and now the love interest has the speaker in their arms and they share a Moment(TM) with the speaker before going back to their new lover. If that's correct, I'd rewrite to something like

now today, a chance meeting,
an almost embrace.
you clutched me as if trying
not to forget me,
as if you thought
i wasn't really there.

you glance over at your lover;
he’s waiting.
always tilted towards you,
the only person
in the room.
does he breathe you in like
i do?

I like the sentiment here, and the introduction of the love interest's new lover. I do think this could have a little more meat to it. Instead of ending the sentence at "he's waiting," I'd give more concrete description of what he's doing, what he looks like, what he's looking at. At first, I thought "always tilted towards you" was this concrete action, but now it feels more like a mood; the speaker is asking if the new lover feels as intensely about the love interest as they do. So, here's what I'd do.

you glance over at your [new?] lover;
he's waiting, fists clenched around his glass.
is he always tilted towards you,
like you're the only person in this room?
does he breathe you in
like i did,
like i do?

though...now that I've done this little exercise, I re-read and find yet another possibility: maybe the love interest has been with this lover the whole time, and the speaker is the "other woman." I've been reading this as the speaker reminiscing on a past love affair and the love interest has moved on while they have not, but I concede here that I could be wrong.

If I were revamping this, I would add more imagery to detail exactly what conclusion I want the reader to draw. Maybe if it's an ongoing affair, I show them sneaking around, the love interest making promises to leave their SO, the speaker comparing their secret relationship to more honest public ones and realizing they'll never have that with the love interest. If, however, this is a past thing, I'd add more detailed memories of what used to be versus what is, the speaker seeing things that remind them of the ex and also show how much time as passed, the speaker feeling or being told they should have moved on by now.

“will you kill me if i go?”
i think i’d kill you
if you didn’t.

i can’t really breathe.

This is a punchy ending. There's an interesting double meaning to "i think i'd kill you if you didn't." If the love interest stays, the speaker will become more enmeshed in their relationship (however real or imagined it is/was) and that would probably kill them both, metaphorically speaking. But also, if the love interest stays...they're committing adultery, an immoral act. That could shatter the illusion that the speaker has of the love interest and actually lead to them moving on.

Overall, I like the vivid and dramatic emotions of the piece and there's some good imagery. I would like a little more imagery to clarify the relationship between the speaker and the love interest. Thank you for sharing and keep writing!