I finally know what it feels like to die
Several nights & on different occasions
Each time wearing different skin
All trapped inside a foggy dream
I’m never relieved from the cause of death
Only aware of the moment
And that I should accept that it is happening
Fear clogs up my throat each time
Like stifling a sob the size of a basketball
Growing and stretching against your
oesophagus
And there’s always people surrounding me
Except I have no shared memory with them
And they gaze at me with the curiousness of
an observer
There’s no one holding my hand for one last
reassuring squeeze
And within the midst of the crowd
I’m an astral traveler
Watching myself struggle to take fewer
and shorter breaths
In a way I guess it kind of feels like drowning
But instead of dense salt water filling up your
lungs
It’s sick, prickling dread breaking out like a
virus all across your skin
That there is absolutely nothing that comes
after this
And I’ve felt lonely before
But I don’t believe there is a more lonelier
thought than that one
So I’m laying there on the wet sunken asphalt
Feeling the tightest squeeze I’ve ever felt in my
chest
As my body mass multiplies until I finally feel
Weighted down to the earth
I’m awfully aware that I’m about to take my
last breath
And for some reason I always try to make it a
big one
I’m thinking to myself, if I breathe in a large
amount of air
I can allow myself an extra 5 seconds before I
finally have to go
And within those few seconds
There’s only one thought that floats around
like alarm bells going off in my head
And if only one person had leant me their ear
for that five seconds
They could have probably heard me begging
to stay
But I die
And then I awake
And I’m left wondering
How many final breaths do I have left?
And should I make them big ones?
Or short and few,
Until I’m all through?
---n.n.b