Praise to the Invisible

Let us praise the almost dead,
the broken,
the soft of heart who bleed,
victims of life’s trauma and abuse,
victims, but not quite,
always with something left,
a small spark of life,
a reminder of the tenacity in every soul,
the clinging to hope
even as the rock slide begins anew.

These are my heroes.
not the gilded success stories of glossy magazines
and perfect suited pretenders,
but the gritty and half complete who stand bloody
in the arena, another victim to the lions
who refuses to succumb even after the crowd has left
and no one is there to see.