on days like this it seems
there is not much to write about.
my mind blurs most things over
and I have become used to nothing happening to me.

my heart is a reckless thing;
it either pounds itself against my ribcage,
haphazard, rushing, angry,
or beats too quietly,
a noiseless bleat, a silence.

on days like this I wonder
‘what exactly might be the point of me?’
and it is never a question I can answer.
(I leave even most poems unfinished.)

on days like this my body aches
like a tired machine, rusted out far too early,
far too quick,
and it begs me for sleep.

but for a day like this one—
for this one I breathe through it,
breathe deep and long and clean,
and declare for no one but myself that it will be enough.
it is not so unsurvivable.

on a day like this one I sit back,
listen to the rain hammer itself upon the streets,
listen to the thunder scream just outside my window,
watch the lightning try to be its own sun.

I breathe in and exhale hard.
even now I do not know what to write about.
but what does it matter.

I convince myself that this—
it is not so hard.
not so unsurvivable.

I check for my heartbeat, and it is quiet—
but it is constant.
it is there.