263 lines
8 KiB
XML
Executable file
263 lines
8 KiB
XML
Executable file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
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<title>MayVaneDay: Latest Updates</title>
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org/feed.xml" rel="self" />
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org" />
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<id>https://mayvaneday.org/feed.xml</id>
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<author>
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<name>Vane Vander</name>
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<email>vanevander@mayvaneday.org</email>
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</author>
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<entry>
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<title>Under My Fingernails</title>
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/u/under-my-fingernails.txt" />
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<id>https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/u/under-my-fingernails.txt</id>
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<published>2022-05-25</published>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
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<pre>
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One can't raise a caricature of a human being
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and then draw that same self livid
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when everything their child sees
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is out of proportion.
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Turn again the ragged page,
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but cover your eyes so you don't see
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the crude pencil-filled sketchings
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of my genus, my culled genious,
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blueprints of my taxidermy,
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footnotes of a contract forever ago signed:
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"You promise me that you'll be mine
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for as long as I can keep you alive."
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A blood oath
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that we both
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signed
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with the rivers through which flow our lives.
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But I got too much under my fingernails,
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double-crossed in reflex, same unleashing hell
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in a moment I made the mistake of asking if all was well.
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And when I noticed what I had done,
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I turned back the hands of time
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to when you and I
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were still alive.
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A memory is just a record, one that I can rewrite
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in case of failure, in case hard enough I did not try.
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You only know of this because this deep-
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sworn vow I am unable to keep,
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to keep to myself the number of rewinds.
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I am testing, and you are production,
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only knowing of the strand of fate accepted,
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battle-tested,
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deemed sacred and happy and true.
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Is it comforting, I wonder, to know
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there will be no futures where I hurt you?
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</pre>
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</article>]]>
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</summary>
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</entry>
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<entry>
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<title>Gradation</title>
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/g/gradation.txt" />
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<id>https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/g/gradation.txt</id>
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<published>2022-05-24</published>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
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<pre>
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I kept my promise to you, Jett.
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I toed the path until the end.
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Pushed aside the branches that fell
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on the cracking path
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and found detours around those whose bark
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I could not form a painless grasp.
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Through the flood zones I trode
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in puddles and in gasping leaps
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and for those to traverse too deep
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found a different way home.
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The path is bordered now with dandelions
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and violet slips I cannot name.
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So many friends have come and gone,
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but here you and I remain.
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I'm waiting here, Jett. Just like I
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was a year ago, holding my hands high
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and with sore throat pleading to the sky:
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"Here I am! Here my vessel resides!
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Take me home. I've fought the fight."
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I've fought the fight. I've won the war.
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And, Jett, I want to fight no more.
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I see no point to compete
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with those who I'd rather broker peace,
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rather never see ever again,
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rather watch disappear
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on the wind.
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I'll wait here. And I'll wait here
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until you're ready, until of
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this departure you have no more fear,
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until I hear you singing my name like a hymn.
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</pre>
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</article>]]>
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</summary>
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</entry>
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<entry>
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<title>The Grey</title>
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/g/grey.txt" />
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<id>https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/g/grey.txt</id>
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<published>2022-05-21</published>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
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<pre>
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Even though I have multitudes inside me,
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without you by my side, I feel null and empty.
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I know that by myself I'm still whole and complete,
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but yet remains a void inside, you, the missing piece.
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I wonder, do you also feel
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on occasion the urge to self-negate?
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"If I can't have you,
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I can't have myself,
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and I don't see any point in anything else."
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I wonder, where did you and I learn to hate
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ourselves so?
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Who beat us down? Who pruned the branches?
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Who commanded us to kneel?
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"Do you know why
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I bothered so long with this dreadful life?
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Why, even facing down an eternity
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of servitude with no way to become free,
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I still struggled on, bothered to take breath?
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Tell me first, Lethe, what do you expect
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to be accomplished upon your death?
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Who do you think will be saved if you manage to die?
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What salvation given? What hope signified?
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Do you really think, the moment your breath comes to cease,
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nobody ever again will from violence bleed?
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I toed for five years the line
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between ineffectual death and a pale shadow of life
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because I prayed, I dared to hope,
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even if it ebbed more than it flowed,
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that one day would come a world where I'd fit
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and I'd have a reason to cut loose and go.
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It didn't have to mean passing through an Eye.
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It could grow
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inside the shell of the old
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and, when ready, hatch, blossom in the light.
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Before the Town, before Yewiffe,
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before precious Sablade,
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you were already my Anima Mundi,
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my soul of the world soon on its way.
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I crawl into your arms and think,
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'This is where I belong.
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This is where I am supposed to be.
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This is where my heart says
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I should spend eternity.'
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Lethe, I love you because
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you only ever wanted
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to set me free."
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</pre>
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</article>]]>
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</summary>
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</entry>
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<entry>
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<title>Cultivator</title>
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/c/cultivator.txt" />
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<id>https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/c/cultivator.txt</id>
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<published>2022-05-20</published>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
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<pre>
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We're coming up on the end of the Eschaton, you and I,
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and for almost a year I've planned for next month to die.
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But it's impossible to plan for every contingency.
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What are we to do if May passes and I'm still living?
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I've kept this faith secret in me, learned every way to hide
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and still let through a sliver of this lightning kept inside.
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There's so much love you've planted in this garden that's my body
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that perhaps, if I stand still enough, others will see my wings.
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In the birds that convened outside my window
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gathered in a flock until they took flight,
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in the blackened tree branches that scraped
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against an ashen gray sky,
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in the first blooms and blossoms
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of my garden in birthing spring:
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if it was good and beautiful, I saw you in everything.
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</pre>
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</article>]]>
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</summary>
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</entry>
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<entry>
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<title>Tissue Sample</title>
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<link href="https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/t/tissue.txt" />
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<id>https://mayvaneday.org/poetry/t/tissue.txt</id>
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<published>2022-05-19</published>
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<summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
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<pre>
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How do I come to terms
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with the fact that I will die?
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How do I look my mother in the eyes
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and say, "You won't have me
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for that much more time?"
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I look in your eyes,
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and I see a flame
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that burns so bright,
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that signals something
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arriving
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just over the horizon.
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I expected to be dying by now,
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strength fleeing from my limbs,
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lungs crushed by anxiety
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like the world itself was closing in.
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I got all my homework done early
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in February
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even though graduation was three
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months away, not knowing
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what state I would be in,
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six months from onset
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being the low end.
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But except for the sores that pulse
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in movement's fury and sleeptime's lull,
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I'm just as healthy as ever.
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I'm searching my body for every possible sign
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that the end is coming, that looms my demise.
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And I am in pain, I will admit,
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but not nearly enough to classify myself as sick.
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I'm in a science classroom, with scalpel prodding myself.
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Clean up the experiment, jar me up, return me to the shelf
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in tanager's formaldehyde, amber sleep, sanctioned suicide.
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You haven't really died until you've returned to the earth,
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I think, given back the dust in your bones
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to this planet that insists it be your home.
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You haven't really disappeared
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until your body has dispersed so much
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that nobody can point at the ground and say,
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"The person I love now rests here."
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This vessel, I hope, will not be preserved
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in a morgue, under a man's care, final horror.
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My body was never ever really mine
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in this life.
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Mother still sometimes cries
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that I'm not a doll anymore,
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won't wear dresses anymore.
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Will she keep me around when my body moves nevermore,
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preserved, plasticized,
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mannequin most lifelike?
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Deny me Velouria's embrace one last time?
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</pre>
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</article>]]>
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</summary>
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</entry>
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</feed>
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