for you and me and anyone else who needs this most

when the story starts and ends with
we'll be okay
how do we know when it truly ends?

while we watch under the slide,
waiting for the world to pass us by,
as the monsters under our beds yell
and hit

when we need our friends more than ever,
but we pull away
because we can't be a burden
why must the story keep going?

when we are the seeds in the ground,
the trampled underfoot,
when we shatter and are glued back
over and over and over
why do we always have to be fixed
when we were never broken?

when we dangle by a threadbare knot over a bottomless pit,
how do we keep from falling?

how do we know they'll catch us?

how do we know that when we feed the dirt,
our story ends?
how do we know where our story takes us,
when neither of us are even protagonists
in our own stories?
how do we know we won't fade into the endless crowd
of blurred faces and silent whispers
waiting on the banks of the river styx?

why do stories have endings?


why can't we live a life worth living?