If I love you
Your life instantly becomes
More fragile than my own
Your body more frail
Each cough or minor pain
A symptom of some dread
Disease or other.

Death is on every road
Or in every other car
Some nights in my skin
Flutters in apprehension
And I am so threatened that
Caring translates itself
Inside my head to
Stone cold anger.

Because I am unsufficient
Tormented by the fragility
Of you whom I love
Selfish I
Find you
Necessary for my own definition
Your life is a single thread
It snaps
I wither.

~by Catherine Lucy Czerkawska

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