Poems for Holding Space #30

When people say, “we have made it through worse before” (weekly poetry for your soul)

When people say, “we have made it through worse before”

by Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones
of those who did not make it, those who did not
survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who

did not live to watch the parade roll down the street.
I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms
meant to assuage my fear…