Coming and Going: 


Every birth is different
Every death hits differently
The process
The arriving or
Departing
Is a fact and
The fact that we are here alive
Is proof of the fact that
We arrived

The departing is different
A life well lived and long
A life never lived beyond the womb
Ended by sleep
Ended in an accident
Ended by one another
Ended by own hand
Ended by illness, virus, disease, heart.

And after
Those of us who have arrived and not yet departed
Watch as people leave
We see the ways of their going
And think of my own going
Of the departure of
The ones I hold dear
And I wonder how I will survive
And if those losses will mark the
Beginning of my own
Departure.



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