Lifeline Poem by michael pacholski

Lifeline



I wrote my own obituary just yesterday
as a matter of fact.
It was on a whim – a trifle
of my own invention
An exercise if you will.
But it surprised me how well
I said my life turned out.
I was born and subsequently promoted
at all the proper intervals
with good clean speeches at stirring rituals.
And all my accomplishments
were neatly measured out
in four and one third paragraphs.
Friends and family
were portrayed in words as bereaved
but remaining within
good taste and proper measure.
If I had made their tears
flow more with words,
I would have had to “leap straight up out of the coffin”
just to bottle them
before they made
too big a liquid mess
for such a medium sized perfect life.

I told of how I died
with a modicum of manner,
doddering enough but peaceful,
well balanced.
And the end came in a sleep without noise.
I have never kept much spillage around.
I was never much for love
nor for material things.
A few relatives were duly noted.
Everything was written and wrapped up
and summarized in a tidy clean space
with a birth in 1968
a death in 2048
and a little life in between.
A grand fiction
A made up thing
A starry dream
shaped and honed and cut
to perfection.

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