Tom Hill | Wanting to Live

Wanting to Live

First it was my grandmother, then you.

Old age and suicide.

They are different, but they are the same;

the dying doesn’t feel right.

Unlike Sexton, I don’t have the lust for it,

not even the timid acceptance.

“It is a swamp of loss and despair,” a friend said,

“Others are bogged down in it,

but we go along, as if nothing has happened,

thinking everyday that something has.”

And something has happened:

the worms have eaten out the eyes,

the casket has begun to decay,

or the urn grows dusty on the mantle.

You told me once, “No one ever truly knows

anyone else. We lock the others out, all of us.”

Even now, I’m not sure how you did it, only that it happened:

You drew Death’s curtains close.

Not heavy, not thoughtful,

you were simply tired, hungry.

Even now, among the living, I am thrown against

the cold, iron grate of every day.

Even now, under the same sun,

I feel life, thick and unforgiving,

rough-hewn and worn thin.

And still, I want it.