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May 24, 2020

The Quarantine Chronicles, Day 40

DAY 40: They tell you:
everyone is born alone and dies
alone, you die alone for sure
but they won't tell you when
otherwise
I don't want to die
alone
shipped out of my own sick bed
into an ambulance, the gurney
boys bumping my head going down
the stairs -- ouch --
into the sick bay, take off your 
ring, please, it won't come off
-- my family said goodbye back
there like they'd never see me again.
-- I'm stripped and hooked up
monitors, tubes, bottles and machines
up my nose, then down my throat, into 
my flacid air-sacks which hurt so bad
-- can I make one last video call --
I don't know what to say
I can't talk with an air-pump down
into my dripping red lungs -- I sit and wait
watch as they wheel the unfortunates out
the back, into a bag and/or a box,
into a military truck down to an open
pit or a hot oven (hell?) -- no one can
visit us, we can't see the helpers
who go about their business like ghosts
we only see their tired eyes, which say
-- at this point --
you die alone --
okay, but I
I didn't believe them, until now
I didn't get it.

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