Or else

To survive

Makes anything

Beyond surviving

Possible

The pileup says else

Trauma repeated in childhood

Some balance through late adoption

One’s plunge into military deliverance

One’s suffering from a freak accident

One’s bad acts towards others since

One’s skimpy marriages

One’s incarceration

Abrade heart and head

Encasing aloneness

But then survival and maybe more,

Or else…