"I just want one day...
One day when I can do the things
That I am used to doing.
Give me one day when I...
When I can get on the floor
And play with my children.
If I can have that one day
Then I will take death at the end."
This is for those who want one day,
This is for those who suffer endlessly.
This is for you and your quality of life,
This is for those who don't care for length.
I've asked a million times over
Why it is so humane of us as humans
To put our dogs and cats to sleep
When their pain is too much to handle?
Yet watching your mother suffer in bed,
Day after day, night after night,
Tear drop after tear drop...
It's murder to let her go?
When a drug comes out on the market
And makes so... so many gain quality,
Why does it have to be taken away
When one person in a million
May have had a bad reaction?
Their tears flow and they beg,
They beg for that one day...
I'll take death at the end if for one day...
I can walk on my own...
I can play with my babies...
I can go out and get the mail
Without the aid of a wheelchair...
I can pick up a jar...
Why is the priority set
To making people live
As long as science can force them
But the quality of that life...
It's not important anymore.
I'd rather die at forty five
If it meant being able to care for myself,
If it meant doing simple things
Like walking down the block...
Instead of living to be eighty five
If it meant I couldn't feed myself
Or wash my own body...
I want quality instead of quantity.
I want to read until my last breath passes.
I want to walk, to bathe, by myself.
I don't want to suffer
For three extra years...
And millions out there feel the same.
Author notes
Ok... I admit, this is not a good poem. However, I didn't know how else to say these things. I never tried to do it in a poem, although I have in an essay. I chose the topic about something that makes you angry, and I get angry when so much energy is spent on quantity of life instead of quality.
The stanza opening this is in quotes because it was something said to my mother by a woman with MS. My mother works for a drug company that released an MS drug not too long ago that appears to have worked miracles for a lot of MS patients... and I mean A LOT. Some of these people had been in wheel chairs for ten years... they took the drug and were able to actually stand up and walk on their own! These people with a horrible disease were getting a second chance.
Then someone died. They developed a disease that killed them within months. They didn't find any connection between the disease and the drug, and the person had actually been on many different kinds of drugs. Still, they took the medication off the market.
My mom gets calls constantly from MS patients begging to sign a waver for the drug. Telling her they would gladly take death "for one day of playing with my babies on the floor." People begging because they were able to walk on their own with the drug. Begging because they could actually bathe themselves. Begging because they wanted to walk their dogs.
But someone died, and even though they could find no connection, they pulled the drug off the market and people are falling back in to this horrible state they left on the drug. And most say they would gladly die at the end for one day.
Why is it more important to force people to live as long as possible no matter what than to make sure they are comfortable, happy, and that, most of all, this is what they want? They don't have a choice here, they are being told that they have a disease that will take their life after disabling them horribly, but they can't have this drug that will ease the disabilities a bit... because someone died. It doesn't make sense to me, and I'm not sure I am making sense to anyone reading this, but it's how I feel.
Sorry for being so long winded.
Written May 14th, 2005
In a list
A contest entry
- Heart wrenching... by ohsweetie970.
500 points, ended May 23, 2005, 19 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
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I agree this poem is very powerful. Its a great free verse poem that expresses how you feel. I'd try to pick a favortie part...but I can't I like it all! Great job! Keep writing!
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I forgot to say that in the first stanza I would substitute "when" for "where" because that makes more sense. Sorry... Me and my memory. There's a reason why they call me Dory!
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Wow. That was powerful!!! So powerful, in fact, that I will pay to applaud it. I know! That really hits home because my aunt has ms... Thank goodness her case is mild. Anyway, I never want to see her unable to do the things she loves, like play with her cat, Ditto, or teach her 2nd graders, or help her kids. My favorite lines were:
"I want quality instead of quantity.
I want to read until my last breath passes.
I want to walk, to bathe, by myself.
I don't want to suffer
For three extra years...
And millions out there feel the same."
It hit me so hard. It really embodies what I have started to think, which is that once you get past self-sufficiency, life isn't worthwhile anymore. Really, truly beautiful write. And yes, I've seen more "poetic" writes from you, but this write was heart-wrenching from its content. Great job illuminating this sad truth!
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