I stand in front of your door,
once again,
in the sterile hallway
burdened by the knowledge
of your disease.
I hold in my mind
the malignant meaning of your mortality;
the very thought of which rots my soul,
quickens my pulse, and sours my bowels.
Sleeping there, oblivious
to the verbal damage I will convey
of the inanimate death
cursing through your veins.
The three letters that I utter
at your bedside:
a word once a whisper in darkness
now an atomic blast articulated in loquacious detail.
I am the minion of the reaper
cloaked in white
a facsimile of a healer
for I bring disease to your heart
with my forked tongue of diagnosis.
I speak the alphabetic characters
mortal men have assigned to Beelzebub
in a Biblical attempt
to obliterate the trinity.
My visage in this moment
seared
into your hippocampal files:
a horrid image
napalmed into your myocardium
for eternity.
Please forgive me brother,
in name and spirit,
for bequeathing unto you
the scarlet letters of my generation.
