You are a wisp of a thing, cradled in my arms, suckling in vain, a ghost in my shirt. No one knows you are there.

They forgot you in a paper bag, withered, and you were taken out with the trash.

You come for me with your absence, you comfort me with it: I protected you by making sure you are not here.

I am here. I am a wisp of a thing, and no one knows it (yet they all do) because I carry you in my shirt, the way some carry stains. You can't seem to live.

I don't know why any more. I acknowledge that I have been bested. I carry on, knowing that--my defeat resounds, year after year. I cannot spin it and myself again. But I manage to shield you still.

I do carry on--I will enjoy this life until I sink down and am taken out and finish my withering, as you have.

We are only a little more insignificant than everyone else for dying this way, early.