Survival

Survival is instinct.
It is your core against the force of the world.
It is also the breaking point of your endurance.
You don’t wake at 2:30 in the night,
making ropes out of bedsheets
saving your own skin, damn the family name
if survival didn’t fuel your flight.
Survival is self preservation.
It is the voice screaming for longevity.
It is also the voice killed in your throat to avoid detection.
You tiptoed around the room,
‘Rapunzel let down your hair’- your dreams calling to your bed sheet ropes
and with every floorboard that creaked
you saw the devil write your doom.
You should know the clock takes longer to make an hour,
the sun takes longer than moments to rise.
But you also knew the fight can leave your body in seconds,
and survival can take a lifetime.
Survival is a reminder of reality.
It’s the voice in your head singing songs of happier days.
It’s also the spade in your hand digging graves.
You don’t tie up hands which once held yours,
unless they grasped your throat as well.
You don’t choke him on the rings you exchanged,
coughing up blood,
unless survival was a voice stronger than ‘I do’.
Survival is lying awake in the night when the sands around you reeking of blood lie still,
because you know wolves hunt in packs
and silence hides footsteps better than your screams.
Survival is whoring yourself out
to the land you called enemy,
while somehow hoping the enemy will feed your starving son.
Survival is a driving force.
It’s the force keeping you at war.
It’s also the veil shrouding the face of resistance.
You scratch at the wall when they come for you,
remembering how you used to mark days at camps.
You scratch because you want to leave behind stories.
You scratch because you want to fight.
You scratch for weapons- bricks, mortar, stones and pebbles.
And when all else fails,
Survival is writing your story in blood on walls smeared with death,
hoping someone else will fight your battles,
even when your survival is dead.