One by One

Another year that smells like hospitals. Sometimes
it gets so hard, thinking that's how you
will spend your last days, and you think,
"No, I'd never consent, I'd rip out the tubes
and walk down the hospital corridors
- the antiseptic always fighting a losing battle,
that hateful pastel ceramic, the sounds of those
who can't escape. I'd splash my red blood on
those pitted floors and die on my own power!"

That's what you think.
Let me know how you feel in fifty years.
Let me know if you can breathe.