My energy is low and my usable time is less.
My treatments make me so sleepy, too,
I'm sleeping away more time than I ever thought I could.
My symptoms are more and worse, harder to conceal from view.
From time to time, I frighteningly bleed.
Now as I find my time is shrinking,
My days flash by as fast as blinking.
I have many things I have to do.
And so many other things I want to do, too.
I have increasing pain and bad difficulties.
I'm sleeping too much, more and more,
Much more than ever before--
As if I were preparing for
The Big Sleep (I hope it isn't that.
There are some reasons to hope, I believe).
I wish I could find time for the books I want to read.
I wish I had time and energy to read even more.
As for each new day that I am graced to receive,
I'm thankful for every one of these.
But pains are multiplying and getting worse; I feel blue.
Depressed even more than afraid of the coming declines.
I'm tired most of the time; made so tired by my treatments.
That shrinks my abled time so I cannot do things I need to do.
But I have to do so many drudgeries.
And gross, disgusting things are happening to me.
I'm not half the man I used to be,
And nowhere near as good.
But I still have essays and stories I want to write,
While I have light.
I still have poems in me to write, and old poems to post,
Before I must give up the ghost
(That quaint and apt Biblical phrase).
I have to measure my moments and days.
Yet I still hope for a medical miracle,
For a wonderful, beyond all expectation, medical success--
Or, maybe, one of those outright, wonderful, amazing miracles.
But I have metastasis even in my clavacles:
Which means Death now has its bony fingers even around my throat.
The clock of my life is ticking like a terrible time bomb.
I'm weak and wasting.
I cannot answer
Every claim on my time, all the pressing demands.
I feel my future slipping though my hands.
Sometimes I can do some of those many things--but only a few;
That's all I can do.
I have end-stage cancer.
For all of us, I pray, may God bless.


==============================
--Michael LP, aka PoetWithCancer
Written on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 1:07 AM PST
47 degrees F. Humidity: 56% Forecast: fair
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP. All rights reserved
(Copyrighted for my estate)