Whitewashed Hallways
As I walk these whitewashed hallways opening doors and peering in,
I see faces lost in despair, eyes blank and faded, jaws slacked and drooling.
Isolated souls fearfully clinging to life or, in many cases, wishing for it to end.
Regardless, most are medicated into oblivion and wouldn’t know otherwise.
Sedated endings are much easier on those who have to care for them.
It’s cleaner and quieter to be killed than to die.
Grief covers my shoulders and cloaks my heart like a weighted blanket
Heavy at first but honest, faithful, and true
The one thing that feels right in this place
This is what we call sanity.
This is our picture of modern health.
This is what our end looks like.
This is what a death-phobic culture becomes
When humaneness rules over human-ness.
