They have to go first, please.

Sometimes I get angry with myself for having held onto them for too long. 

They kept me afloat when storms raged and aglow when skies darkened.

For considerable time I couldn’t have released them because they were effective life support.

I sustain myself now.

Fairness and pain no longer concern me.

Only inaction frightens me; I’m not so attached to breathing as fulfillment.

Sending them out to stand or die on their own may seem a strange gratitude.

But I am no reservoir.

I’m losing time and they’ve simply grown too many and too large to contain.

I have to give them their own lives.

I hope I get these stories out of me before I go.