Ross Thompson

The Survivors Club

Afterwards,

when I was dragged from the wreckage
of a four year stretch of grinding a furrow of ill health
and watching the world slip quietly
down the pea green tube that kept me afloat,

I woke to a world
that felt at once unspoken like an Indian summer
yet broken like the longest winter,

my heart now stamped
with the membership of an exclusive club
for those who have loved and lost
and lived to tell the tale,

and who now share knowing glances,
barely perceptible head nods
and compassionate smiles:

a coded language that goes unnoticed
by those
yet to feel the sharp sting of grief.

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Ross Thompson is a Northern Irish writer, avid video gamer and Lego fanatic who oscillates wildly between taciturn and verbose.

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