There is comfort to be found in our dearth of unique experiences.

This broken heart has been reforged by softer souls.
This lesson has been learned by crueler minds.
This victory has been shared by worthier hands.
This shame has been loved by greater kinds.

It has been done before.
It can be done again.

We will not die.

The night is quiet, unmarred by your brilliance.
You are no more than a phantom,
Haunting.

I should be thankful,
But I refuse as much.
You were a supernova of salience-

-and I am still blind.

Feel despite oppression;
Aim high, and hold God's gaze.
Treat kindness as your course,
Home like warmest maize.
Endure the call of justice,
Run far for such a sake.

I do swear this vow:

Loath all that loathes love's sake:
Odes bitter and false,
Valiance burnt, a lie like hate.
Earned comfort is your joy,

Yarn sewn from woolen craze.
Our hearts are twice apart,
Umbral moons a sunlit blaze.

Thus:

Forever
for never
always, last May
she'd felt the air was acidic
scorching past bruised lips to fuel the wrong kind of engine
that water was a balm just out of reach, forbidden.

Today, with her boot turned to lead, Jessie raced alongside relief
a king's ransom in her contacts
she a queen-to-be.​