Survival is not a rapturous
rebirth, not a glorious
cloud-bursting return to life.
Survival is the absence of death.
It is a subdued, a hushed existence
where no joyful songs
are sung by the seraphim.
It’s a middle place; a place
between lightness and dark,
between water and ice,
between wakefulness and sleep,
between pain and the tears,
between now and forever.
But it does have an advantage
over death. I live to talk about it,
to relate the tale as it happens,
not only its extremities and cruelty,
but also the goodness that flourishes too.
So, even though unmade then and there,
a sea of doom, I return to tell this tale.