to live.

i am dying.

 

and it's not in the metaphorical way that leads to

suicide

or depression or withdrawl from the world,

 

i really am dying.

 

my hearbeat is faint, feeble, and my lungs

refuse to give me oxygen and my muscles

are slowly ceasing to respond to my frantic requests and my eyes

won't let me see and my ears

don't let me hear and my body

is done fighting, it is letting itself slowly

die

and there is nothing i can do.

 

dead at only sixteen, seventeen,

if i'm lucky

and a whole life to live taken away before i could

take the time to live it and i wonder

how my little sisters are going to react when

my parents finally decide to tell them that their

older sister is dying and that she is past saving and that

she can't live much longer.

 

i wonder if anyone at school will miss my presence, will they

notice that i'm gone when my legs will no longer carry me

to school and my lungs will no longer work on their own

and i am stuck in a hospital bed instead of the one at home

with the window and the sunshine and the partially transparent purple curtains,

or will they all be shocked when my obituary is in the paper and my funeral

is planned for a bright spring day and my coffin is slowly lowered into the ground?

 

there are so many things i will not get to do, so many

places i will not get to see, so many

people i will not get to meet, so many

books i will not get to read, so many

words i will not get to say.

 

i am dying and it hurts and i'm scared and i just want to

 

live.