The Truth About Tigers

You come from survivors.
That is plain in the fact that you are here.

Someone before you walked through a winter
without enough bread.
Someone slept in a field
while artillery stitched the earth.
Someone buried a child
and still rose at dawn
to tend the living.

Their hands were cracked.
Their teeth broken.
Their backs bent under work or war
that did not care who they were.

And still—
they kept breathing.

Now you stand in your own weather,
heart unsteady,
the ground uncertain
beneath your feet.

But the breath that kept them standing
moves through you—
has always moved through you.

And you are still here.
Act accordingly.

Nick Allison