Falter

This is why they continue:

I saw my friends turn and falter
one by one
turning a lie on its heels,
their rationalisation of inhaled defences
had failed. Their ashen lungs heaved,

but try as they might, the rain continued to fall.

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Are you beginning to understand?

Quote of the day [night].

"The angel of his youth became the devil of his maturity. He went out with women when he was young, always holding something in reserve. There would always be a reason to break it off, which opened the door to a multitude of relationships. Heaven. Or so he thought. As age encroached upon his sensibilities and form, he longed for something with enough vitality to endure. But the covering cherub of his Lothario days had stayed with him and was no longer so angelic. It haunted him, guarded him, kept him from intimacy promising the ash dry glory of so many toppling relationships, toppling like dominos, one after another, ad infinitum, or at least until he died."