Strength

I met an old lady today, so old that she
could not grow older, and much to her
chagrin she could not stop stuttering
the same, inaudible words over and over,
and no, they weren’t prayers, or solicited
pity hopes of God, they were words we clunged
to silence and sin to know of, and I think she did too;
but I think more than that, she incontrovertibly wanted
to stop saying the things she did because
she was so confused, and she was desperately
reticent as she touched her lips and felt
them move, and I saw that look in her eyes
which I knew all too well from living with
people who didn’t like themselves, and I knew
if she was strong enough to stop breathing, she
would, and that is what she kept saying, I realised,
over and over again; she kept telling the particles
around her that some people are strong enough
to live, but what they need, what they require,
is to be strong enough to die.