If death would I wake?

It lurks, within the depths.
taking over, consuming the
places which are yet mine.

Spreading like a plague set
deep in winters night. It
plots in critical design.

Life goes on, people go on.
I sit in haunted apathy, is
it fear? Am I to die young?

What of my children and my
love? Do I suffer to appease,
to believe I fought and won?

Thoughts are consuming, While
the cancer consumes me. Some
reality I lie with, die with.

Ringing phones, doctors calls,
assurance of the highest. yet
the silence is for what I wish.

The chemicals, They tire me, no
patience to be had. My stomach
turns from bitter betterments.

The children tiptoe past shuttered
room, Whisper now, do not awake
mother,to father we are sent.

I am not apt to reach that point
where they draw on silence to
quiet me in half day slumber.

I am not inclined to shut off the
light, lose away the greenery of
what may be a final summer.

So a choice is to be made of bleak
longevity or of weakened pains and
shaking to a quickened death.

Dare I drink the poison which may
save me? Or do I pass in grace with
a smile, with my hair as the rest?

Oh! The worry will take me before
the disease, The heartache will
kill me before they will know.

I wait, discouraged and afraid, I
wait to encounter what may not be.
I wait prepared, fear never to show