A/N: Written for the Freeverse Poetry Boot Camp at the Poetry Craze (link's in profile), prompt #014 – medical.

there's no point in living
so let's die together

/11/

It's over; she's gone, they're still alive
and bound together by that promise,
the alliance of the 15s they called it

And this time, it wasn't just a passive agreement
like he'd always done, but something wholly heartfelt:
he's found his path in life, that point
to keep on living on

And he does it: that wish he'd had to find the soul
of that piece, beyond the mechanical repetition
the books, the adults demand:
and things change, they do –

He's convinced her, his mother, showed that soul
he's yearned so fiercely for, that she'd disapproved,
that had seemed like such a worthless life's goal before
that seemed impossible

But in a year or so he's actually there, he's standing
where he wants to be, on his way to his goal, his dream,
the thing that cuts away at the regret
for living on in a still cruel world

And he sees it still, that cruelty: the death,
the lost dreams, those crushed hopes,
but also, the whispers of some life beyond
if he pushed, or was pushed
far enough.

Death didn't end in that hospital bed
after all.