DEATH Poem: Editor, by Brannon O’ Brennan

I always have depended on – Tobacco
something to remove – Alcohol
me from Earth – Sedatives
periodically.

Trifling fixes, secret
shots on the run with
Mentos chasers close behind.
Hardworking, Ambien entitled.
Never fully dysfunctioning
means never having to stop.
Photos, plaques and
LinkedIn – artifacts of
a life well edited.

Don’t believe the stereotypes.
Dependence is not for the lazy.
Getting just right, not too much,
requires planning, focus and deception.
In this country, if you do some
important things well, you can
do a lot of other things poorly.
Be the nightmare who
pays his taxes on time.

I’ve considered whether I might
harbor a lazy, half-assed,
commitment to self-terminate.
Yes, commitment. What else can
you call decades of consistent
intimacy with known lethals?
Executing a top-secret plan to
keep it at a low level so that
something else

Respectable old
man death
gets me first. Mitigations
of exercise and vegetables.
Now, when I can edit
my autopsy report
on the front end.

My brother stopped making
revisions very young.

Oxycodone

I let a sleeping giant lie
about how he was doing
until one day we found the
purple and yellow version
of him under his puke.
So I think, what low odds
it happens to both of my
wheezing mother’s sons.

Lung cancer

Mine won’t be tragic if
I’ve done my job as the editor.
Ordinary suburban fizzle and
some old man aftersmoke like
when a bottle rocket underwhelms
its July 4 executioner.

You see what I mean by
half-assed commitment?
Not fully determined to
be here or be there.
Living liminality to
its fullest until the
Medical Examiner resolves
ambivalence and releases
the published version.