Death offends me.
I hate it.
And yet it surrounds me everyday.
I have seen more people die than anyone should have to.
I have seen countless dying people.
And even more people who die, a little, inside
As those they love die.

People who talk of the dignity of death infuriate me.
They have never seen death up close.
Up close is when you are not blinded by your own emotion.
Up close is not when you cry; and insulate yourself.
Up close is clinical, detached.
Up close is cold observation.
Up close is when ice sifts to the bottom of your gut.
This is when you form shells around you
To shield yourself from the physical awareness of death.
You joke
And you trivialize
And you hate those who die for dying.

Understand, there is no quiet death
No gentle smile of benediction
As someone dying looks upon his life.
No zephyr cools his wasted face
No shafts of sunlight sent by a petty god
Illumines his release from being.
Instead, there are rattles; and fear;
And convulsive movements; and starting sweat;
And staring eyes; and sphincters relaxing;
And hands that clutch at nothing in particular.
And superimposed on it all
Is the knowledge: that life
Is withering.
Fading.
Dying.
After that comes an unspeakable laxity
And after that
Putrefaction.
Corruption.

All of this is Death.