waiting for a tragedy

though the
reality of death
enveloping
everyone we love
(swallowing our worlds up whole
like a vacuum doing in those
ants that cruise along the surface of
the carpet (working, working, working)
until that fateful day when the
human occupants see fit to destroy
civilizations of insects which may
ironically, inevitably, outlive themselves
if/when the nukes fly, the biochems
spray, or the governments of the world
decide its time to accidentally leak
those wellsprings of smallpox, etc. said
to be eradicated & merely history
back out into the veins of our decrepit
species),
looms over us all,
it shows its face ever so more vibrantly
when the loved one is older, very sick, but
determined to outlive the cancer spreading
inside them---
with the persistence of Hitchens,
they run on the treadmill &
though one has to admire the fight,
it is quite difficult, as one who cares so
deeply, to not see the need for rest to be
something which at this point, should be
of utmost importance.

so the loved ones worry,
day & night,
night & day,
because it feels as if the day is coming closer
when the person they love
will be gone forever &
the plethora of emotion ranges from
sadness to anger (an obvious sadness, but an
anger that ones hands are tied---that one cannot
stop the cancer on their own & that no one has
the right to tell/ask anyone how to spend their
last days, even if all they do is work)---
so we wait.
we wait for the tragedy to come,
a rehearsal for our own
individual
end,
but one so much more painful &
terrifying---
like staring out the window of a train,
seeing an explosion & pure chaos up
ahead &
the train is slowing down,
with the doors locked (doors for which
you have no key) &
even the air inside the train car
is getting thicker, hotter &
as sweat begins to bead on the forehead,
it truly is getting harder & harder to
breathe.