Desiring a long life,
I renounced Pleasure,
Distraction, Fun--

Like a Buddhist monk--

And offered my delinquent
but pliant body
to the waterboard,
the smoldering cigarette,
the clenched fist,
the medieval rack

In the dungeon basement,
screams unheeded,
the seconds passed like hours,
the hours like days,
the days like years,
the years like millennia,

Each excruciating moment
impossible to elide or ignore,

I felt as close to Eternity
as a mortal man can get