poem

 Life vs Death

Battle Royale, endless chess match, cat and mouse. Everyone over here is on Team Life, for obvious reasons. Dental cleanings and colonoscopies. Cholesterol levels and coronary calcium scores. 30 minutes of brisk exercise 5 days a week. No processed foods. Moderate alcohol intake. Rumor is, Death always wins. But we’re not ready to concede yet. To Life and Death themselves, it’s always been a zero sum game. Every match ends tied at the final horn. Nobody ever wins. They play for fun. Not us. We’re keeping score. Every day lived is a point lost and another coin in the pocket of the great adversary. Two weeks elapse and it’s a rout. I’m never catching up. Another year goes by and you’re mathematically eliminated; may as well forfeit. Life and Death don’t see it that way, though. The points just get passed back and forth. Every loss comes back as a reciprocal win. Every second someone is born and someone dies. Life takes its gains as it can. Sex acts in seedy motels. Bees burrowing into tulips. A summer rain after weeks of drought. An infant is the biggest boon of all— 83.3 more years of life! — and cause for celebration with sleepless nights and unpredictable bouts of incontinence. But Death is the wily old veteran. It knows it gets it all back. It sees an old man on a bench in a park and thanks him for his decades of timely remuneration. If nothing else, the old man can take pride in that. Good old sport. Death, though, has always been a notoriously slow starter. Finds Himself deep in the hole after only two minutes of game action. But give Him time. Even you, once way ahead, are starting to get uncomfortable in your chair. He sees you sweating on the other side of the garish green table. Those are your chips stacked in neat little piles in front of Him. It’s getting late. You look at what you’ve got left. Win or lose, it’s time to go all in. 

5/19/25