Ficly

An End

And what of the funerals of intimates?
Ever since I sat through my first loss,
the end has plagued me like an aftertaste,
always ghosting around the back
of my thoughts.
But what of the day when I wake up in
a place I no longer recognize,
for tacky furniture I didn’t pick out,
for women in white whisking me away
in a chair
(when did I forget how to walk?)
to dining halls with gaunt faced strangers
who barely speak a word.
Instead, they gape, mouth half open,
their minds fixed on something
I cannot see.

And when the masked nurses wheel
me back to that unfamiliar room
with pictures of my children,
their children,
their children,
she drives the happy needle
into my ivory, sagging skin
pulling me closer to a sweet oblivion of
forgetfulness.

I don’t want to forget,
but I’ve already forgotten what I
wanted so desperately to remember.
It’s all going.
I’m going.

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