04-27-2023, 09:47 PM
All lives lived in this world
are sick, one way or another.
You start out a sickly child
always vomiting on your mother's shoulder
or your father's lap, then as you begin
to stand up on your own, to walk, to run,
you learn your parents were actually the source
of your many diseases -- their impatience
when you were an infant, their present ignorance,
their malice as you are forced
in this uncaring world out of your home
to hold down something even they can't call
a living, to treat your time
as a series of debts to pay, to pass down
your own lack of vision
to the succeeding generation -- and then you find
it's not so much a lack as it's beginning
to blur, your arms and legs
are weakening, a mere cold
translates into pneumonia: the end comes
so quickly, instead of a treatment
you think it's one more sickness.
are sick, one way or another.
You start out a sickly child
always vomiting on your mother's shoulder
or your father's lap, then as you begin
to stand up on your own, to walk, to run,
you learn your parents were actually the source
of your many diseases -- their impatience
when you were an infant, their present ignorance,
their malice as you are forced
in this uncaring world out of your home
to hold down something even they can't call
a living, to treat your time
as a series of debts to pay, to pass down
your own lack of vision
to the succeeding generation -- and then you find
it's not so much a lack as it's beginning
to blur, your arms and legs
are weakening, a mere cold
translates into pneumonia: the end comes
so quickly, instead of a treatment
you think it's one more sickness.