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

Everything rots, doesn’t it?
Watch with me, dear reader
This petal falls from the rose
Your body starts to decompose

Another petal falls
Maggots burrow into your brain
A Panther tears open your chest
All of your organs are devoured hastily
Not to be put to waste

A third petal is blown by the wind
Your skin starts to peel
revealing marvelously white bone
a small sprout grows up through
the ribs and shows itself to the sun

The fifth and sixth petals fall together
The rain brings forth a flood
washing away the dirt and leaves
only your skeleton left behind

A curious dog takes your femur as
the seventh petal falls
You are rudely moved from
the forest floor to a dark room
They give you a name

The eighth petal falls
They put you in a box
The sun no longer shines on the sprout
and it too wilts
cries of people
surround you as you are then
dropped into your grave

The rose decomposes,
just like you.
The box doesn't last long
And your bones finally
are given a rest
As they crumble into dust

Dear reader, you see,
Everyone rots.