I find, lately, that it is simply no longer possible for me to lose
"Everything".
Sometimes it's almost disappointing.
I'm not sure when it happened,
Or why, really,
But sometime this summer I reached a point of loss from which return is not easy.
And I began to feel a rhythm to it, like the tide.
It became soothing. Lulling.

I began to find my footing, the way you find the cold, rough sand under your toes as the ocean crashes over you and retreats,
Batters you and peels back, over and over-
Brutal, yes, and heartstoppingly sudden, but...
Predictable.

I am somewhere now beneath the waves, and it is calm and blue, and I am not afraid.
Souls do not need air.
Souls do not need to know which way the surface is.
We like the sun, but we do not need the light.
We are. We have been. We will be.
We go on.
We go on and reasons present themselves, eventually.

I choke and burn, but I do not die.
I can panic or surrender,
Struggle or acquiesce,
But either way I will go on and on,
I will
Continue.
It is a weariness that weights me here,
Not fatigue, not stress, but...
A dull knowledge of what will come,
What always comes:
I am wretchedly adaptable, pitiably enduring.
I continue.
This mind refuses to shatter.
This heart refuses to curdle.
This soul refuses to fade, and I go on- unwilling, sometimes, uninspired-
But I go on.

This place changes around me, but I am rooted to the spot,
Anchored by a stolid determination, a purposeless desire to be that I disguise as passion,
As fire, as belief,
When really I don't know why it's here, or why I am.

I only know that I have been and will be.
That resistance is futile.
That I can twist and writhe and scream and drown all I please,
And I will still wake up on the other side, continuous, old, here.

Once you discover that no risk can **** you you become obsessed with taking them- how much of me can I really demolish and wake up the next morning?
How much can I really give and go on, still?
And eventually the answer is that there is no limit, no change.
No matter the desperation, no matter the passion, no matter the sacrifice... I go on.
I go on and worlds rise and fall,
People live and die,
I love, I lose, I cry, I dream,

But I do not move.

My face remains placid. My fingers trail in the sand, white.
Chaos reigns, sometimes.
Storms rage.
Tides crash.
But at the end of everything I emerge from the murk, swaying and ancient,
With a spreading blue behind my eyes,
And the only thing I can ever be sure of is that I will go on.
It is sometimes
Cold comfort.