What do you do?

What do you do? With the thoughts, The feelings How do you begin to understand how to help? Someone you love, dissolving in their own sorrow Because the unthinkable has become real How do you keep them afloat, keep the world from crushing them? How did Atlas do it? Their pain is mine, their hurt my own I adopted it when I chose to love them But how do I clean their wounds that have festered for so long when they have appeared on me too? And the saline tears are salt Rubbed, grated into them, with prayers the only salve, And even those cannot close the gashes that weep with us