Words drip

Words drip
From an empty mouth,
Like milky fluid
From cancerous lung.
Drained away
In mock relief, to
A sterile hospital bowl.

Your words are little comfort,
Just a small tap, plumbed into
A human soul to
Drain phlegm and pus
Through punctured skin.

Extract from a
now limp body
Worn,
Empty,
Hopeless.

Is my metaphor heart,
Like heart, that under
Surgeon's knife is
Butchered in the name of Good?
Mental tools fall, cleave. Brutal.

You stand close. Relative to my
Hospice bed.
Staring at perfection,
Asking me to discharge myself.

But house-bound, bed-bound
Grave-bound, can't you see
The complex tumourous knots that
Tie misery tightly to me?