Goodnight love

I have asked him
If it came down to it

I have asked to see that I am released
To set my soul free from my body.
If my mind is gone and I can no longer take care of these things myself.

We will move to Vermont.
And I will sign the paperwork
I will record my wishes in poems.
And enter them into the public record.

But if it comes to it I have asked him to do the hardest thing a lover can be asked to do.

Fentanyl, Ativan and if not those Insulin or a pillow will do.

He demurs. He says it will not come to it.
He says he won’t do it.
Doesn’t think he could.
And I know it will be hard.

But don’t let me rot tethered to a body when my mind is gone.
Cut the string and let me go.

I have seen this.
I have seen this up close.
And how hard it is for the living caring for the dying.
Sometimes for years.
I have seen how beautiful it is as well.
But I observe, not for the participants.
That is just hardwork, heartrending, unending.
The way my neighbor’s sons dutiful took care of her.
Coming over everyday just to make sure she was okay.
In the end she died in her sleep in her own house, the one her husband now long deceased had built for her.
But she was still there at the end.
96 years.

And I have seen it doesn’t usually work out that way.

But if I have left the building you may burn the building down and release its ghosts.