Arrogance

Arrogance

By Joe DeLucia

Cough, choke, beg for air,
God grabs your throat, stands on your chest.
Blood stained eyes peek through purple flesh.
Feeble gasps, “don’t let me die, do your best.”
Can’t even speak, just spit it out, weakly reach.

Death stares. Trust me, need fifteen minutes,
Congestive hearts are all alike, listen!
Don’t panic, endure the pain, your volition.
Medicine’s a science, I’m the best, your physician.
God will lose, I pry his fingers from your throat.

Game is on; you’re the prize, spar almighty.
Eighty lasix, nitro 4, Bi-Pap smothers.
Heart throbs, pulses pound, nurses scream, sweat lathers,
Fluids drain, lungs to bladder, you urinate pajamas.
I smirk, so easy, just calc ejection fraction.

Just like the textbook I studied so hard.
Vessels engorged with blood expand
Bulging neck veins like rivers subside
Heart no longer pumps against the tide.
Air replaces fluid in sponge-like lungs.

Breathing slows, God’s grasp loosens, flesh pinkens.
Chest stops heaving, you smile, alarms no longer blare
Fixed you in fourteen, chuckle, a minute to spare.
Wise ass, arrogant, cocky, how I dare.
Not a life, just pharmocology.