What kind of life
Means silence
Out of worrying
How pain will follow –

The voice which fails
Despite pushing
Empty air
From heavy lungs?

I can’t confide
In my friends,

Or tell Danielle
How this feeling
Persists despite
Begging these doctors
For an answer that
Just never comes.

Andrew says
Hope is a scam.

Perhaps he’s right
Being angry,

At every god
Worshipped with money
Promising help
Soon to fail.

Things fell apart
So damn quick
As growing up
Piled on ignorance.

We watched our childhoods
Wither
Over families
Disputing their share –

Left behind
Sorting those lies
Around storefronts
And hospitals crowded
While viruses cursed
Generations
Long before masks
Were still used.

Home betrayed us all
Pushing work,

Believing such greed
Offered safeties
While allowing plagues
Full dominion
Like bigoted fools
They elect.

Happiness
Was freedom’s ruse.

Love rests
Alongside memories
Buried deep down
Below symptoms
Killing each joy
Fear has lost.

Getting better
Never will happen.

Hurt finds doubt
More appealing.

Faith sleeps
Since agony wakes me.

Accepting death
Matters more.

• J. Pigno