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.