This Is The End

More and more often I feel like I am in a race, and though the destination is near, I must drag my body and mind along--the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and has in fact become dead weight. The legs of determination grow wobbly, vision clouds and my whole spirit squints to keep fixed on the goal.

I bear an expiration date, like a common bottle of milk--and though the numbers are smudged, the milk begins to smell sour. How long? Long enough?

If only I could lie down for a moment. Sleeping beauty. Rip Van Winkle. This is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend, the end . . .

I forget the most essential things and find myself captive to worried fantasies, waking dreams which conspire to convince the rightness in my mind that to struggle is fruitless, to sleep is inevitable.

I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee, and they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, and sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep . . .

But I will not, no, not yet.