from here to that side of dawn

 i bet
you see a realist in your reflection
a girl that figures
she knows when she's beat
deciding whether or not
this is the time
weighing it carefully
because you see the finality
want to make sure
you're really finished with life

or you're tired
busted open
and is it really worth the work
to climb back up to the peak
you fell from

the high point
surely
has been and gone on this timeline
and maybe
there's some kind of do-over
in a different shape
on a different plane
another year in another hundred thousand days
or it could be just
rest
where you don't have to deal
with this mess
the impossible tangle of thoughts/words/concrete walls
none of this goddamned emotion that keeps you
paralyzed
at all
anymore

what if the hardest thing you can do
is hold on
but you do it anyway
for a while
just to see
and another while
after you have  
the beauty in the small joys
you would've never known
if you'd left the other day

what if your do-overs
roll over at every dawn
and what if
a smile is victory enough
for the first one

i bet
your hands are burning
i bet your eyes and chest are filled
with all the suffocating excess
of a house on fire

but never forget
when the very shirt
that shelters your shoulders in the cold
drags you further from your chance to breathe
you can drop everything else, girl
lose everything
but those things
that make you
whole