A Year Like This

How do you survive
A year like this

I am here

Alive
A year later
And I still don’t really know
How to answer that

Other than to say

Each morning

Just try to open your eyes
Brace for the pain
Of remembering that
The nightmare is real
And with open
Tear filled eyes
Just try to see

Each morning

Put your feet on the floor
And put weight on
Whatever holds that day
Just for that day
Because it will change
Every day
And with broken wobbly legs
Just try to walk

At some point

Try to stop
Counting the casualties
Lost opportunities, people, and dreams
Because
It’s too painful
And numbers
Don’t go that high
Anyway

Make peace with

The idea that
The plans you had
For your day
Your week
Your life
No matter how small or lofty
Are no more
Your new plan for now is
Survival

Crawl if you must through

Holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries
Any way you can 
And accept that they will hurt
The entire twenty four hours  
The one thousand
Four hundred and
Forty minutes
That make up a day
But who is counting

Take the pretty container that

Housed your faith
Both the simple and the
Complicated parts
And dump it all out
Then smash the container
Into tiny unrecognizable parts
And sit with how that feels

And while you sit with how that feels

Don’t let anyone
Give you their old container
Or try to fill yours with their pieces
Because you have to rebuild it
Or God has to rebuild it and
You have to fill it again
Or God has to fill it again
But with more carefully chosen pieces

Because someday

It might get dumped out again
And if done right
Maybe next time
The container or the pieces
Might hold

How do you survive

A year like this

By living

Breath to breathe
Distraction to distraction
Latte to latte

By talking

To beautiful people
Who have been
Somewhere
And survived

How do you survive

A year like this

I don’t think I could

Find the path again
If I wanted to

And because I have survived
A year like this
I never want to
Find this path again
Or know it so well

And the question now becomes

How do you survive the year after

A year like this
 
And my answer is
I don’t know
But I think it starts with
Each morning
Just try to open your eyes…