No justice ’round here
No fairness or equity
Only exclusion

Life ain’t fair, pardner
Pull up your big girl britches
No whining allowed.

This brave new world lacks
Compassion and forgiveness
Callous survival
Impossible, she thought, that decades later the love still held. No one had ever cared for
Her this long and this well. Surprised after the first year when he still woke up beside
Her. Didn’t he know she had so little to give in the way of affection? And yet he mined
Every modicum of goodness, prying tiny pieces and holding them beneath a magnifying
Glass until they caught fire and everyone had to acknowledge their presence. Even her.