All you can do is grit your teeth

You get dragged to your final day.

Some go kicking and screaming,

Running and hiding inside of the vast and overpopulated halls of

drugs, sex, work, parenthood, and media.

But death does not lurk there.

Others go gritting their teeth in grim acceptance.

Like the slow climb up a roller coaster,

the tallest coaster ever seen,

with the slowest climb.

You get that same stomach churn as you feel gravity pull on your flesh,

You know the drop is near, but there's no turning back.

You hear the tick tick tick as the coaster car is pulled up the rail,

It only grows closer from here,

There's no way back.

Your youth is at the very bottom, waiting at the ground for you.

You'll never be there again.

When you drop you'll go through the floor,

straight through hell but you won't stop there.

Destination:

A time before birth,

that place between sleep and awake,

where words go when erased and fire flies when extinguished.

You'll be there before you know it.

All you can do is grit your teeth.