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6.

Surer than taxes,
I will someday fade out.

Once, the method of doing so
was of paramount importance.
I wrote that I was determined
to die by my own hand,
not to be a statistic of depression,
but as a message of empowerment,
choosing to control the moment
of oblivion.
I wrote that I loved life too much
to allow fate
to choose when I would lose it.

Some speak of the death of the spirit,
of ambition,
of the Muse.
Some say that to stop writing is to die,
that we are nothing without our creative impulses.
I no longer fear that sort of death.

Still—
that doesn't mean I need to welcome it.
And surely, any death
but the death of the body
is illusory.
(Whether the death of the body is illusory or not)

As long as we breathe
we can adapt
and the Muse can adapt with us.
There are still things to be written
long after youth is gone

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