Death is always in the room.

Death was there when you were born,
patiently standing behind the doctor
as he first held you up
and presented you to your mother,
covered in filth and choking for air.
Waiting.

Death was there when you took your first steps,
in case a truck
were to go careening
across your front lawn,
in a freak accident,
slamming through the front window
and into the living room,
ruining the kodak moment.

Death was there for all the important events,
and all the mundane ones:
Looking on with your father
while you learned to ride a bicycle.
Hovering over midfield
during every soccer practice.
One row down from you
in the orchard
during the rainstorm
when you had your first kiss.

And death is still there now,
one instant away from you,
always prepared
for that driver asleep at the wheel,
for that blood clot come unstuck
from the wall of your femoral artery,
for that gunman
suddenly bursting through your door.

But that’s really the beautiful part of it all.

Everything that's ever happened in your life,
everything that mankind has ever accomplished,
every crying newborn baby,
every impossible feat of exploration achieved,
Death was just an instant away—
a shroud around the entire planet
constantly abided and never
broken through

until the very end.

Death is always in the room.