Taken By the Clouds

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