Locked-In Syndrome Poem by Kiranjit Singh Bajaj

O soul in a heightened state of house arrest,
The seat of all consciousness and being,
I care not for your immortality or to know your shade outside of me,
Or to argue your disembodied existence,
That which is free from the load of the body,
For devoid of compassion you are hardly a light of heaven,
When you fail me, pale within,
Dwell like a wing-clipped mortal in a cage of flesh and bones,
Refusing to make your much trumpeted final fight home,
To the celestial world of pure light,
Condemning me to a solitary dark room of endless traumatic physical seize,
Where a thousand cries pierce not the hide,
Favor me thus that should the celestial hand ever beckon,
Dig in your heels and burn within,
To be cremated with 'em flesh and bones,
Ashes never to rise as a phoenix,
Bring me the ultimate destruction,
For I seek no more.