I Have Been Dying for Years

I have been dying for years. It’s a rather tiresome state, and at times I wonder if it is not the worst. A dead man, when he is dead, is dead. A living man, really alive, is alive. But here I am, dying, wearing away, a wraith; not yet in the earth, but not quite on it, either. This perpetual impermanence. I suppose it has its virtue. I am, truly, filled with the pangs of life. Life is not a wholly familiar thing to me, and when it comes, it is like a hot needle. I know life, and I know death. From a distance, true, but it is still a true sight of things. The dead do not know their state, and the living, the really alive—well, in their case, bliss is ignorance; they forget themselves entirely. I see it all, know them both quite well, but at the cost of not knowing, not really participating, in either. Others have it worse, I suppose. Most of the undead are so destructive. Most of them are dead things striving to be alive. Me, I’m alive and waiting to die. They take, but I have the chance to give.