You Always Thought Poem by Julia Luber

You always thought that when you'd die, you'd look back at a magnificent life filled with
great times, friends and family-people you loved and places so gloriously enveloping
that some part of your dying and diseased mind, (as you are dying, remember)
might have confused this place from being heaven.

You contemplated that it would be a fantastic death-exploding into that magic white
tranquility of peace, where the power of consciousness becomes equal with the fact
that life had ever been at all. You always thought that you would have loved life and
that it would have never crossed your mind, to ever be happy to die. But that you
would engage death, nonetheless, with some relief and respect.

And there would be white flames-
higher than snowcaps and places that are famous for being very high up.
You would feel great in looking back at life and thinking it was a magnificent ride.

But it hasn't been that way for a long long time.
And this grandiose almost megalomaniac's death you once imagined,
instead feels like chunks of it are happening every day and whenever
what Death is feels like surfacing-over your will, against your great Respect.

Life no longer feels like something to love and respect:
it feels like something to fear. Because there is no other choice
and so many terrible things happen to some people.
And all of our dreams seem to be confiscated so that
at least somebody will knowthis kind of terrific death-
a fantastic and final dominance of Life.
Something stronger and higher.