Love Poem 14

I spent one

backbreaking summer

trying to find a way to exist in this body.

It was all I did every day.

Try to find a reason to keep moving.

Try to find a reason not to hang it all up and

hope

there is another life, another world, another something,

another anything

after this one.

It was never about suicide,

and it was never about killing myself.

It was about deciding if I wanted to simply

play out the string and

live a boring, comfortable life that lets me

check off the boxes,

or did I want to find a life where

maybe I am not as comfortable as I would like to have been

and where

I am burning the candle at both ends and across all side

just to see what happens.

What is life like on a boat full of holes?

What is life like in the killing winter?

What is life like where the food source is myself?

Comfort is a tough partner to give up

and chasing a life of questions seems,

to many,

to be less preferable than

chasing a life of answers,

but the magic and the passion for it all is found

deep in the mud..

That backbreaking summer didn’t teach me much, however,

except that a life one loves never comes from the

simple path,

the easy path,

the well worn path.

If it all means that one is consumed by existence, so be it.

There is a high price for living that must be paid

regardless of how we live,

so burn the candle until there is nothing left to burn.