Poem: Slipping

I’m dying.

It’s not a matter of if, but when—

my body is betraying me,

cells turning rogue, organs fading,

pain etching itself into my bones,

dull, constant, like background noise

I can’t escape.

My blood doesn’t flow like it used to;

my breath catches, stumbles,

like a body that’s forgotten how to live.

Nobody cares.

Not really.

They see me breaking down,

watch my hands tremble,

my skin grow pale and fragile as paper,

but they’re too busy, too far gone

into their own invincibility

to recognize how close death stands to all of us.

The doctors—

they shrug,

say there’s always someone worse.

“You’re not there yet,”

as if that should bring me comfort.

Not yet, they say,

like my organs collapsing under their own weight

is just another plot twist.

Like I should be grateful

for another day of walking this tightrope,

even though the fall is inevitable.

They don’t understand.

They don’t get that the people who are “worse off than me”

were once where I stand—

on the edge,

still able to fight,

but slipping, always slipping.

If they had been saved then,

in this stage where the pain is chronic but not fatal,

maybe they wouldn’t be on the ventilators,

under the knife,

past the point of no return.

But nobody listens

until you’re too far gone to hear them.

By then, it’s too late to go back.

It’s not a matter of if, but when

the disease will win,

when my cells will finish what they’ve started,

and no amount of white coats or sterile rooms

can pull me back.

I’m dying,

my body failing,

and nobody will reach out

until the “worse” becomes “worst.”

But the when is creeping closer,

its shadow growing,

and no one cares until it’s too late.

Too late for me,

too late for those who come after,

falling like I am,

invisible until we hit the ground.