For months
I’ve sought relief
From this ceaseless
String of symptoms
Which break me
As they worsen
Till my mind
Responds in words

So the fear
Of coming death
Is that much more
Substantial
While harnessing
How it festers
To convey
What hurts me most

Narrating
Sudden twists
Of traumas
Inconclusive
Deemed by doctors
Mental
On papers
Pushed and signed

Fake
As stabbing pains
From neurotic thoughts
Obsessive
Awaiting their final
Chapters
Between cracks
In hospital walls

Among beds
Where sinners lay
To confess their penance
Readied
Through torture
Of each motion
Or test
Performed with grace

As diagnostic
Pleas
For a cureless ill
Which begs them
To prepare their
Tragic endings
By embracing
Fragile bones

And lives
As ruined saints
Who find their God
When swearing
By heavy-handed
Suffering
That relieves their art
Of choice

From destiny
Fallen sick
To the dream
Of martyred wishes
Like truth
I battle daily
Uncertain
What comes next

Poems
Hardly rich
As they pass
Without absorbing
The fullness
Of each notion
Which comes with
Losing blood

Thankful
There’s no way
To express
This body failing
Through phrases
Worth sustaining
What rots
Inside my guts.

– J. Pigno