will it be just like falling asleep
without waking
an eternal night
without sun’s dawning
no stars, no moon
just the silence
and the void?

is there a last goodbye,
a threshold you must cross
a point of no return?
when does living start becoming dying?
when does the soul stop stirring
grow stagnant, still, now rotting?

even in this late, unhopeful hour
I grow afraid
of the cold, of the dark
of the unforgiving emptiness

this vacuum causing traction upon my soul
my insides slowly implode
like a dying star losing it’s fight against gravity

I do not hope, but despair wracks my body
steals every breath
makes each waiting moment painful agony
I dare not wish, but volition still stirs deep within me
wriggles and writhes like some small animal
scorched and beaten, mangled and cornered
each moment meted out by its frantic heartbeat
thrumming in time to each ragged breath
as hard as I’ve tried to kill it
it fights with preternatural power
with unquellable primitive instinct

I believe
that the transformation from living
to dead
is no mean task
not a simple thing that is done as a trifle
the road of death itself
is long and hard
and there is a price to pay
for that dark road among the stars

you cast away all hope
is the first thing to pay
and even dreams of love
evaporate to the wind
and still you weigh too much
and the path cannot hold you

the poisons are incremental
you must concentrate long and hard
drink deep of the draught of Dionysius
or instill the liquor of Morpheus into thine veins
the powders of the Alpha and mayhap the Omega
the leaves of the Quechua of the Andean Plateaus and still and still
Death is a hard mistress to win

even with miracles scintillating through my brain
this emptiness will not stop
this emptiness keeps expanding
blotting out the sun and the stars
consuming everything and anything
outpacing the small gains I make everyday
and still the darkness will not catch me
it drives me still, taunting me with death
but not giving it to me
and I hang limp and flaccid
weary and worn

the end of the universe is a dull, drear thing
not with a bang
but the slow dispersion of all Creation
colder and colder
beyond freezing
but never still
disorder ever increases
but the darkness keeps expanding

is this my fate, to hang still in this rarefied nothingness?
suspended by my shorts, to stare at the receding stars?
am I, just now, doomed, and yet will live a trillion years
to witness the heat death of the Universe?
what new thing might I see under the sun
when even the sun is blown to oblivion
a smoldering coal ember
fading, fading, but never still?

The question is not new
perhaps even when I was new born, the question had formed on my lips
though I had not the words to ask it:
why am I?
and the silence is bitter to me
is colder than ice, than steel, than the empty vacuum of space
and I can guess at the answer
but even if I know that there is no answer
I still am not free

life is a hard burden
growing heavier, fatter, more ponderous in my mind but I dare not cast it off

the suffering that is known
—I cannot bear it— but I neither dare

Until one hour, one minute, one second
either I will know the answer
or gain the courage to set myself free