Churchill's Chagrin

Churchill’s Chagrin

by Bryon Slack

“If you’re going through hell,
keep going.”
—Winston Churchill

The cradled remnants
of eviscerated innocence
in your grief-clawed fingers
resting atop your lap
in the room where it died.

How many hundreds of days
between that night and now
and yet you remain
frozen in that space
and that moment in time?

Yes, that pain is real,
but move if you want to live.

When the rafters fall blazing around you,
when it’s so cold that it’s all you can feel,
when the wolves’ frantic howls follow,
when the wave begins to fill the horizon,
move if you want to live.

Even if your lungs smolder with rebellion,
and every breath tastes of ash—
move if you want to live.

When the bridge buckles beneath the weight
of all you’ve carried alone,
when the voices that once called your name
have all gone quiet—
move if you want to live.

You are not the cadaver of childhood
you’ve been cradling.
You are not the house that burned.
You are the motion through the ruin;
the muscle’s last defiance,
the pulse that refuses silence.

And when the dawn finds you trembling,
trudging toward it on feet that
have forgotten how to feel,
you won’t ask if it was worth it.
It was.
Because you’re still moving.
Because you’re still here.

Move if you want to live.