Refusing To Regress...

Battles won & battles lost
All the wounds & all the cost
With little left & less to gain
Questions used to just remain
The refusal to regress
as substitute for progress

The smallest victory can cost more than all
The only souls live enough to fall
will be considered standing tall

One bullet in a chamber waiting
with countless threats encroaching near
Surrender too ingratiating
and suicide presents no fear
To regress towards death becomes the pull
that tugs upon the triggered-soul

How do you live when it's to the death
How do you fill your final breath
How do you refuse to just regress
What will is there one might possess
beyond the doubts the dead confess

From the first word spoken
to the last rites read
From the petty token
to the nourishing bread
The life that lives will not be dead
despite the horrors and fearsome dread
but refuses to regress instead