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I Keep On Keeping On

I sit and cry through the night,

wondering if the fire that claimed Aaron

should have taken me too.
Perhaps our collective conscience
burned with him.

I’ve witnessed more deaths in two years
than in a lifetime
though only through a screen.
What does it mean to see it in real time?
How do they smile
while the sky still weeps?

I wonder if love will always be unfinished.
Why no happy-ever-after for me?
I recall the men I have held
each one a lesson in measure:
how much to give,
how much to trust,
how much to lose.

Tonight I want to be selfish,
to weep the rivers dry,
to press every thorn to my mouth,
to taste the blood of roses broken.
I should shield myself,
yet I lean toward the wound again and again.

You deserve all the love in the world, he said.
I wanted to believe him.
I still do.
But he was always leaving
though technically, I left first.
I always do.

Here is the truth:
I cannot breathe.
I cannot eat,
or sleep,
or drink.
All I crave is the spirit I knew
for two brief weeks.

Is that love?
Or only lust,
the flicker of a mind against mine?
How can I love a man
who never once looked into my eyes
as though he saw my soul
yet here I am,
undone for days,
mourning a vow that was broken
long before it reached me.

And still,
I keep on keeping on.

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