Hit Me Running

Don’t sell me funeral plots
on late night television
if the end is already in sight

am I supposed to pull the sheets up to my neck,
count to zero,
smile, and cease?

no

keep your pills, in all their pretty colors:
celebrex, propecia, allegra, lipitor, zanex, viagra
keep them for scrabble
keep your rogaine, your facelifts
keep your death insurance
keep your graveyard reservations

hit me running.

let me go down swinging

make it a sport:

give me a ten-minute head start
and an obstacle course.

place a beautiful girl on the far side of a mine field
and whisper, “she wants to kiss you”

target me on my feet
dodging doomsday’s in slow-mo bullet time

let me duel the grim reaper in a poetry slam

but let me lay where i fall
let the buzzards and coyotes
pick apart my bones
don’t stuff me and sew me up
waste my estate on alcohol for my wake
not formaldehyde
instead of wood for a coffin,
build me a funeral pyre
and set me ablaze like a pagan-warrior-king
sing songs,
roast marshmallows,
get drunk,
and recite your poetry
by the time we’re done
the grim reaper will beg for a vacation

i don’t have to win,
but let me believe I have a chance at immortality
even if the probability is one a billion.
those are good odds
if I’m the one

those who believe in death will die first

if I believe I’m going to live forever,
if I believe I can fly
I just might

so from the chickens before me,
sucking in their pot-bellies,
grooming their comb-overs,
I’ll craft wings from their plucked feathers
reach cruising altitude alongside Icarus
but outrace the sun

light doesn’t have the speed to catch me

these lungs won’t stop breathing,
these cells will break open replacements
this heart will beat out of sheer will
to last longer than timex or twinkies
and endure eternity
just to see how this story ends
and whether
the hero gets the girl
or a bullet to the brain

I will hold onto immortality
by my fingernails and the skin of my teeth
past the all epochs and ages and armageddons
so I can see if the end
begins the beginning all over again
or does the whole thing backwards
or upside down with inverted colors
or just stops
like in the Twilight Zone,
one second before the apocalypse

but my bet is that i
will finally sober up
take my medication
set the alarm
roll over
and turn the television off