Eutheronica

I take long walks, I’m in very good shape
Athletic and healthy, I just turned forty-eight
I am jogging now, down the path alone
No one’s around, I’m two miles from home

My eyes go wide and I clutch my chest
Thudding pain I need to rest
I fall to the ground, what does this all mean?
I gasp for breath and try to scream

I close my eyes, life ebbing away
I know I’m dying I try to pray
I cannot think, I cannot see
What’s going on, what’s happening to me?

I wake up suddenly, Though my eyes are still closed
A mask covers my mouth, and gone are my clothes
I cannot move, This SHELL is not mine
My body was healthy, my body was fine!

I hear my family, my sons and my wife
Others are gathered, those close in my life
My brother, two sisters, a good friend of mine
Please don’t cry for me, I’m going to be fine

Everyday is the same, everything around
I’m still in a coma, my body’s still bound
IV needles feed me, though why can’t I wake
If this doesn’t end soon, my spirit will break

It’s been many months, No change in my state
They’re discussing euthanasia, I listen and wait
“He’s a vegetable, and that’ll never change,
It’s costing too much” I’m too hard to maintain

My heart does not beat and I take not a breath
With machine’s sustaining me, I face imminent death
They’ve decide to do it, later today
One day, before, my forty-ninth birthday

His hand is on the plug, My wife is crying
“This will end his suffering”, The Doctor is lying
I hear her say “yes”, she lets out a sob
My life I so cherished, is about to me robbed

This can’t be my end, they don’t know MY choice
I struggle to move, to release my voice
No words are heard, no words are spoken
And as the plug is pulled, all hope has been broken

I never wanted to die! How can they not know?
Anguish is wracking my body, why doesn’t it show?
And as life slips away, I fight to say good-bye
Tears trickle down my cheek and I begin to cry

Frantically grabbing the plugs, they jam them back in
The Doctors and nurses found out found out, that no can could win
So I reach out and grab, the hand of my wife
Squeeze her hand once, then surrender my life

-dgermain-
04/27/00