Euthanasia

Life…it is a flame so fickle
Burns low in gathering dark
Of a room where naught exists
But only my shadow and me
Inseparably bound to the scene
Till all of me fades to dust
So one with elements of earth
That I can no longer from it
Be told apart, not even in grains.

The flame, it illumines so little
One can’t tell whether it burns
A full candle or a mere stump
And my two hands are too inept
Devoid of adequate life in them
To feel it full and tell of it all
From flame to the end in entirety
Where it is and where will it end
To be rid of the painful unknown.

Somewhere, mayhap a window
Opens to let a gust or two in
But I cannot tell whether or whither
For silence absolute and dark in here
That’d reign supreme, unchallenged
But for a meek protest that is me
A bundle of ragged remnants of pieces
That once belonged to a puzzle
Which, now, never whole can be.

As I squint at the pages of my dreams
By this glow dimming by the hour
In this room to which my life is bound
I think of others who often walk past
And some who care to knock and
Come in to say ‘hello’ and perhaps
A kind word or two they would offer
Even hold my numbed hands to lend
That fleeting warmth of love and life.

‘No I do not need what will only last
As long as your visit,’ I want to scream
Though, outward, I smile and, at times,
Bow a courtesy, for at least they tried
I have no love for them though nor hate
For they are not permanent enough
To matter one way or the other to me
And they come and go as they please

Me within my confines the only constant.

Oft did I sit wondering to self aloud
Of your normal life, dear reader,
Those who are born with privilege innate
To walk and live outside their mind
Beyond bounds of any room’s confines
In a bright world full of this and that
Where their room is a part of a whole
And not the entirety and finality that's
All about the candle that will burn out.

You, I urge you to judge me not, pray
For who I am between beginning and end
One single episode of my life constricted
Toiling through unforgiving treadmill walk
To which Time renders illusion of miles
With malice towards one and all it doth
Makes everyone keep pace with its tune
Giving and taking life with same indifference
As the Fates it dictate in cosmic whispers.

I see perhaps less, perhaps more than you
In this room that I can never ever leave
In this flame that constantly holds my gaze
I go deeper than deepest depths of abyss
Existing back and forth between here
And those edges forbidden beyond which
Lie the vast deserts of eternal cosmos
That hold no allegiance to Time like me
There, I sit and marvel at my insignificance.

The bright world that I saw in waking dreams
Of you and of others I seem to have met
And crossed paths with and held hands with
In those conversations that, in this room,
Do not exist beyond an occasional whisper
Let in by those rare marginal anomalies
Which I wish were more real in my world
And you I thank for bringing that outside
Into being for me (even if a distant dream).

I cannot belong to your world, dear friend
Only admire and envy and long for it
From this side of the great divide
Between our two separate dimensions
Where you have known me to exist
In my own private heaven and hell
In my own everywhere and nowhere
This small existence, the only one I have
Even though any more it can ne’er be.

I see no strength in me, aye, to escape
To hope for a life beyond my dark room
But I am not utterly devoid of resolve
To be liberated, not be a helpless slave
To Time or Fates or mighty forces beyond
The cosmic agents mighty and eternal who
Intend to rule my life betwixt now and end
Keeping me here as long as it pleases them
Mere speck in their grand egotistical design.

So here is my verdict and my resolve
I shall no longer be bound by the flame
That burns at the mercy of wick and wax
Those instruments of darkness around me
And so it shall be that though I do not
Hold power over what was or what is
I will not have this last bit of dignity denied
To choose how and when of my far end
Bring it to now and snuff myself out.