The Waiting Room

All sadness, anger, rage combined,

with fear that I am next in line,

these diagnoses of a kind,

like row of those, set destiny.

My fellows, ill-met, pilgrimage,

here’s fellowship of destined pain;

yet hope we may escape the worst,

despite statistics, well-rehearsed.

The common fear of losing self,

our recognition, partnerships,

relationships, community,

the human bonds, bound family;

our aching, shaking, freezing, kicks,

of no account compared to this;

that we lose sense of who we are,

our lifelong ties in a blank stare.

We may gain rites to disappear,

writ, living will as testament -

that sad goodbye to all we know,

farewell in what may lie ahead;

we’ll not relinquish without dread,

the mind and will on which relied,

that living will to do, decide,

identity, our personhood.