Life is a wager with honeyed deceit,
A dance with the sunlight on ever-wandering feet.
We tumble through meadows, laughter unfurled—
Children with wildflowers, kings of our world.
Yet still in the silence where sweet moments fade,
Reality whispers; innocence on a knife’s blade—
Thunder cracks open the seamless and serene,
Unmasking the fissures within every dream.

Life blossoms with pleasure: first kisses at night,
Wine on our tongues and stars burning bright.
We marvel at birth and the gift of each breath,
Yet parade on a stage where we waltz with death.
Fragile petals hide razors within fragrant delight,
And laughter skirts the precipice unseen in the light.
Desire carves chasms that yawn where we stray,
Even euphoria promises sorrow one day.

Death is serenity, a velvet retreat,
No hunger, no sorrow, no sting of defeat.
A pillow of dusk where the last flame finds its end,
The coldest of strangers, the truest of friends.
No choices regretted, no deadlines to keep,
Just calmness in chambers where even gods sleep.
The past crumples like paper, the moments unmade,
All debts are released, all shadows fade.

But oh, that dark alley that lies in between—
Where angels look sideways and devils convene.
A funhouse of fear and terrifying mischance,
Where hope limps forward and nightmares advance.
The grappling, the gasping, the stealing of breath,
The bureaucrat’s cold waiting room halfway to Death.
Iced whispers of silence, the echo of dread,
Where shadows congregate and all solace has fled.

Saline drips tether the will to a threadbare song,
While Time grinds a dirge, intolerably long.
Memories flicker—pain sharp as shattered glass,
Fractured reflections that ache as they pass.
The body betrays where the spirit still fights,
While mercy, gloved in darkness, dims the last of the lights.
Reality bends in a morphine ballet,
A cruel carnival that reels in decay.

The priest murmurs prayers, the doctor submits bills,
The family weeps, and the lawyer drafts wills.
Neighbors leave gifts that remain by the door,
While grief settles in like dust on the floor.
The morphine might whisper, “Relax, it’s okay,”
While clocks devour seconds stolen away.
Solemn prayers linger where memories spill,
And shadows grow heavy, the air thick and still.

Here lies the rub, not in living or dying,
But in spirit’s slow unraveling from endlessly trying.
There’s no great glory in one’s final release,
Just monitors humming and counterfeit peace.
The humor we conjured dissolves in the air,
As ghosts of laughter drown in despair.
Farewells hang brittle on words left unsaid,
And silence stands guard at the foot of the bed.

Raise a glass to oblivion’s orderly end—
Toast beginnings where ignorance dares to pretend.
The terror’s not death, nor the spark of youth’s fire,
But the ritual march between, dressed in civilized attire.