The Script of Life

Is this how it was meant

to be?  Is this the way

lives mesh and finally

conclude?  He is trapped,

suffocating, stifled, one

day certain to reflect the

day before.  What has

happened to his life?

It is not that he has not

loved her, for he has,

and loves still what she

has meant to him, of course

he does, how could he not?

But this, his life, is no way

to live.  They speak of

modern medical survival.

What do they, in their

arrogance, opening the

boundaries of new life-

saving protocols and 

emerging drug therapies

know of life, of the quality

and affect that they have

compared with, leaving

him like this helpless.

At an earlier time her

colon cancer would have

been fatal.  He would have

been disconsolate, mourned

her yes, of course.  But now,

with her MS and her stricken

state of arthritis, she in

physical pain, he her warden.

What of his own heart

problems, what of his pain,

his arthritis, who cares for

him, thinks about, is concerned

for him?  What is there left

of his life, obedient to her

incessant, never-ending need?

One hushes these thoughts 

but they rise unbidden to

deride the noble martyr who

becomes the resentful victim 

of time's endless cycle,

tormented by thoughts obliquely

expressed only to strangers.