No One Wants to Know
The future merging with the present,
the present becoming tenuous,
energy seeping like a leaking battery,
the minimum becoming overwhelming.
Everyone applauds the virile eighty-year-old
his full head of hair, toothsome smile, poised
at the hatch of Cessna about to
tick off sky diving from his bucket list.
No one wants to hear about
pills coded by color, arranged by time of day,
taken with or without food, living with
side effects that leave you wondering
if you wouldn’t be better
off without any of them but
too much a coward to miss a dose.
Everyone admires the great grandmother
spryly crossing the finish line
of the half-marathon barely out of breath.
She and the skydiver
perfectly coiffed, fit and gliding
across the dance floor in the ballroom
of the luxury liner cruising
to exotic places far from
the endless medical appointments that
resolve nothing,
the living in the moment
because it’s all that’s left.
No one wants to know,
the doctors, caregivers,
the annoying guilt-driven family members
about this game of
diminishing returns where every day
the odds become worse.
This piece is so well done. It’s such a beautiful gut punch.
This is bleak, but I love it. It feels real