Twisting Comfortably In A Coffin Poem by Chris G. Vaillancourt

Reluctance, mingled with trepidation;
these are my watch-words now.
I accept that the cancer of pretending
is as mortifying as the cancer inside.
Victims. Everybody seems to be one.
Moaning and bewailing the suffering
they seem to feel must dominate
every social contact.
Ah, but what of those who
truly are dying? Where are
their voices in the moisture
of the shedding crocodile tears?
It does matter how much time
is left, or so it seems.
I wonder how many barbed wire
fences must be climbed
before anyone notices
the bleeding? Does it
matter, one way or the other,
the shadow of a man's skin?

And off somewhere else, in
another temple of a false god,
a single man kneels
in supplication, counting
the seconds until
he expires.