I'd like the Breathing to Cease

The spotless white walls
the smell of disinfectant.
The beeping machines
and the deafening silence.

I look at the hospital bed
from the visitor's chair.
I look at the skin that once was chocolate

but now is raisins.

I sit and count the wrinkles around the sockets
that had eyes shimmering with purpose once.

Now

There are hollow grey mouths of guns

shooting out vacant stares.

I wonder
how long does a day feel

when the breaths you take are fabricated through machinery?

No words for months,

No songs,

No fights;

Not even humming.

Breathing

Beep

Breathing

Beep.

I breathe twice instinctively

amidst every beep,

first for her,

then for me.

But I sit and wish
for days at a stretch

for the drowning to be complete.