You don't always live with it.
Sometimes you tuck it under the bed with all the other monsters, and fall asleep. Or you bury it six feet under the ground with other beautiful leaves that have turned to crunch. You cover it with dirt, and then sand, and then more sand. You sit on the beach, build a castle, and warm yourself in the sunpour.
You live above it.
Sometimes you climb a beanstalk into the clouds and hide it there under a giant loaf of bread, in a world of things that did not really happen. Or it sits on your chest, laboring over your nose. You run out of breath, skip a heartbeat, take a pill to forget it is there.
You live below it.
Sometimes you wall it off. Good fences make good neighbors, and all that. You live around it.
And then there are the times when it leaves without warning, and the absence itself is a presence. You leave the door unlocked, or lock it twice as fiercely, but you set the table either way. A glass of wine just a stretch away from your own, waiting in the comfort of resignation.
How do you live with it? they ask, but the answer is you don't. Sometimes, you don't.
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Prompt from Discover : Below. In collaboration with the Cheer Pepper efforts to blog every day this month. Follow the AprilCheerPepper tag to read more from the team.