Why is life?
Called by poets
‘Pain with no end’
‘Disease without a cure’
Maybe It’s just
Misunderstood too
A question without an answer
A tired contender
in a ring of pain

‘why is life?’
Muttered the Stoners
and Addicts,
Eager to take
another sip,
another puff,
another pill.
‘Maybe under
The neon trip of
LSD and
DPH and
Anger and
Confusion,
There’s something more
To this thing called life.’

Why is life that is
Described by the parents
and the civilians
as ‘Precious’ and ‘Beautiful,
When I still see the scars
Dripping with
the blood I spilled
and tears I cried
dripping with the rage
That they forced on me
With just a faint
Memory
of Why.

‘I know!’
‘Why is life!’
Cried out by the pastor
and the priest
to be,
‘Impure and tormented’,
‘A messy, infected wound’,
‘A sore that must be cleansed
and bleached’
When the very systems
that swore to cleanse evil
kills those who do good
and condemn those
who simply express
who they are.

“why is life?”
I muttered,
bent over the
bathroom sink
hands stained
red
from the pills I took
to erase the pain
of life