At this hour I have come to visit
A man whose last hour visits him, to be explicit
And politely share a table with your fate—
I ask you how you’ve been of late
You answer with a joke, tired as your lonely bones;
It smells like the rubble of earlier times
That crumbled under the weight of later ones.
You ask me how I’ve been—same old, same old
But then again—here I am at your bed
The finish line where your now feeble life will end
And through my watery eyes refracts and bends
The life of a man who was my closest friend
With a soul so steadfast it is not to be be imagined
That stood proud all your life against the winds
That would break a lesser mans spirit to the unfortunate stuff
That is all that remains of a life lived rough.
All my life I watched you take out loans in vain,
Borrowing love in bad times, repaid in high interest and high pain,
And I watched you swallow sadness like medical syrup
Even if it bought you just one hour, just one day—
It was the noblest kind of giving up.

And yet somehow, all the while,
You bite off the matter with a smile
And you took it all for us, you took it all
All of the punishment, the injustices, the debilitating maw
That was at all times upon you, and slowed you to a crawl
But thought we could not ask it of you, you continued along
And if it was so needed you were happy to crawl
For all of us who under those pressures would undoubtedly fall.
And for so much of these times when we could barely stand
And you chose to forsake your whole life and extend your hand
It was slapped away with anger and appraised as unneeded
A thankless profession when it even succeeded.

And every day I assure you hoped
I hoped that all your sufferings would be worth the fight
But I grew up, and you grew older
And we both waited, pined in the fading light
And even Hope herself gave you the same cold shoulder

But in these waning hours of your final day
The time in which I have left to repay
Wears thin, approaches quickly and soaks the skin
And soon it is too apparently too late—I’m at a loss
There are no words to appreciate your life for what it was—
An exceptional life without the gloss afforded to the fortunate.
There is so much to say, but even now I cannot speak it.
And in those final moments I do not walk away
Afraid of remaining longer, too terrified not to stay
I simply look your way with saddened eyes, as if to say
“I will miss you; I will miss you.”

And now I watch your saddened eyes in your eyelids frown
And I watch those human voices wake you as you drown.