no one will ever tell you to save yourself

and when you are, finally, collapsed in a place you have earned and name safe, there will still be a knock at the door of your ego, a cry for you to minimize your heart

you will survive armageddon only to have people tell you that the earth cannot kill you

you will survive the density of someone else's active, prolonged suicide, the continual proximity of death, you will survive months of deep trauma 

you will survive your soulmate hating you, you will survive your family hating you, you will survive your community hating you, and a second community, and a third, you will survive your soulmate turning a fourth to which you thought you belonged

you will survive all this and more, episodes we did not even bother to record, memories we did not even bother to categorize, only to have people tell you that the earth is a good place

summer child, erstwhile tourist, could i but have invited you to any previous iteration of my existence, you might have known the depth of wrong that occurs here every day

there is no such thing as evil, only human hearts making tectonic shifts against others when their own agency and identity is dislodged, and a cycle that continues

just as the air turns and the oceans visit your home and the body turns over its complete set of cells every seven years, there will come a day

when you have never touched me, and the earth births its own ends