1d • Share your Poems
The Things That Refuse to Die
I have watched grown men
cry in grocery store parking lots
over things they swore.
They were buried years ago.
Funny thing about grief
it doesn't stay buried.
It waits.
Like an old dog on a porch
listening for a truck
that ain’t coming home.
People talk about healing
like it’s some clean white hallway
with soft music playing
and sunlight through the windows.
That’s bullshit.
Healing is eating cold pizza
at two in the morning
because sleep won’t touch you.
It’s staring at a toothbrush
that hasn’t moved in years
but somehow still feels used.
It’s hearing a song in Walmart
and suddenly forgetting
how breathing works.
I used to think strength
looked like mountains.
Now I think it looks like
an old woman showing up to work
the day after her husband dies
because life doesn't stop collecting rent.
I think it looks like
a man sitting in his truck
wiping tears off his beard
before walking into a room
pretending he’s fine.
I think it looks like survivors.
And God,
There are so many of us.
Walking around carrying invisible fires
inside our ribs.
Smiling in family photos
while entire wars
rage quietly behind our eyes.
Some people lose houses.
Some lose marriages.
Some lose faith.
Some lose themselves
so slowly
they don’t even notice
until one day
their own laugh sounds unfamiliar.
Me?
I lost the future
I thought I was promised.
That one nearly killed me.
Not all at once though
life’s more artistic than that.
It peeled me apart slowly.
Like paint weathering off an old barn.
One memory at a time.
But here’s the strange part nobody tells you.
The broken ones
notice beauty differently.
We hear loneliness in train whistles.
See entire stories
inside abandoned buildings.
We understand storms
because we’ve survived them.
That’s why some of the saddest people
still make the world laugh.
They know darkness intimately.
They learned humor
the same way candles learn fire.
Out of necessity.
And maybe that’s what being human is
not avoiding destruction
but carrying hope
while your hands still shake.
Because the truth is,
some things refuse to die.
Love is one of them.
Memory is another.
And somewhere tonight
someone is staring at the ceiling
wondering if they can survive tomorrow.
I hope they do.
Because the world has enough people
pretending to
be unbreakable.
What it needs
is people willing to say
“I’m broke too.
And I’m still here.”
By Jason Strickland
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The Things That Refuse to Die
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