lately, lately, lately,
I’ve learned life is too
short, even for the most
invincible of us.

we live in hospitals we construct
for ourselves, shelves stocked high
with anxieties, and
finances, and
pills for every kind of high
or low.

and we live this way–
chained to our bedsides,
keys in our pockets, crying
out for doctors
and saviors.

and we die this way–
holding onto something that we
thought, we constructed to look
like hope.

except we know it is just
a scribbled picture, just a
crayon creation of a
gruesome monster, a thing waiting

to grab us, with fierce
blue claws, and pull us
under by our
fluorescently lit halos.