Not Just Piss and Blood

Tethered to this gurney
by IV drips, oxygen hoses,
catheter tubes
lying in this pool of pain,
surrounded by flitting
shadows of loved ones,
it’s not hard to imagine
some means of escaping
a pain that transcends
even this morphine drip.

Following the morphine
button’s cord,
one could silently slip
into the comforting darkness,
lie on the forbidden side,
curl up into a fetal position
silently slipping
into that next dimension,
the one just
to the left of this one,
that left-hand of darkness.

Though something vital
has been sliced away,
some secret part
of me left behind,
these voices
from the shadows
pull as tightly as
umbilical cords,
until it seems I must be
tied to this world
by love as much as
by piss and blood.