Still here, the mostly functional, the face-washed and car-started,
the man who found the keys and got the morning properly departed —
not thriving, not ascending any arc that warrants the announcement,
just still here, the continued, the attendance and the pronouncement.
Some days still is the whole achievement, the stripped and unembellished
record of a person who got through the night and hasn’t relished
the idea of the alternative — I made it to the other side of dark,
the day is available, I’m filing that as the minimum remark.
Still — the word that holds when the more ambitious words have left me,
still — the quiet evidence of the ongoing, the kept free —
not fixed, not healed, not ready for the climb into the clearly better,
still, just still, the word I’ll carry like a letter.
Not fine, not great, not the ascending story of the self-correcting,
still, just still, the horizontal and the not-defecting
from the life that’s available even in the low-grade and the grey —
still, not nothing. Still, the doorstep of the following day.
Tomorrow’s door is still available to walk back through and enter,
the night is its own accounting but I’ve made it to the center —
still, I’m still, between the edge and the decision not to cross it —
still, I’m still. And still is still the thing I’ve got. I’ve kept it.