I saw a man die today.

The last of the light left his eyes.

I spent years watching him wither away.

As his hands went cold and his skin turned grey.

His eyes sunk in, and his heart slowed.

He fought with the doctors and believed their lies.

He lost decades that to him were owed.

His saving graces were his death in disguise.

But he was terminally ill, and he accepted that fate.

Wandering, mumbling, writing until he saw hell's gate.

I watched with horror and awe,

Unable to make sense of any of it at all.

Why would this happen? 

Why did he act the way he did?

And when his clock was striking its last,

I looked, horrified at his transplants vast.

Every procedure, every drug in the book,

And not one hair better he ever did look.

Whatever they stitched on, surgically removed and prescribed,

His fate was already sealed from the moment he arrived.

The doctors all hung their heads in shame, they blamed their own.

The loved ones spoke in a reverential tone.

But I was closer than they were, I knew who he blamed for the filth.

He blamed the world, he blamed God, and most of all, himself.

I watched his final days, shambling around.

Once a bright young man whose mind was sound. 

He looked at me — no, into me.

When I saw the light leave him, I mean.

I wonder what he saw,

Looking back at me from the other side of the mirror screen.