Survivor

Image: taoty / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We hold it against you that you survived.

People better than you are dead,

but you still punch the clock.

Your body has wizened but has not bled

its substance out on the killing floor

or flatlined in intensive care

or vanished after school

or stepped off the ledge in despair.

Of all those you started with,

only you are still around;

only you have not been listed with

the defeated and the drowned.

So how could you ever win our respect?--

you, who had the sense to duck,

you, with your strength almost intact

and all your good luck.

~ Vijay Seshadri