Frank Dullaghan
Holding On
You were only killing time and it’ll kill you right back
—Meat Loaf
If there’s much point in holding on
it’s in the hope that times will brighten.
It’s more desire then expectation.
When hope is scraped down to the bone,
when every promise has been broken,
what point is there in holding on?
Yet that longing to believe’s not gone
despite the facts, despite the notion
that it’s more desire than expectation.
So, I choose instead to live like one
who will survive these days, that darken
what hope I have in holding on.
I understand there’ll be no fortune
to ease my senior years, I’ll blossom
some other way—no expectation,
except to kill the time I’m given.
Too many who are ill will worsen;
too many good will lose their holding.
Yet soon enough it will be done:
this waiting, this sacrificial token.
This is the art of holding on.
It’s more desire than expectation.
Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is the author of four poetry collections, including Lifting the Latch (Cinnamon Press, 2018). His poems have appeared in Cyphers, London Magazine, Nimrod, Poetry Review, and Rattle, among other journals.
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