To wake you

I'm trying to find the coordinates of Hell.
Hell is an incoherent hospital room,
But before that, hell was waiting and not knowing, also.
The fear of having to say goodbye,
Or calling out from death's doorstep to let people in.
Frightening, revelatory stuff of nightmares,
And is it less sad when there's loads of people
at your funeral?


Hell's seeing an anti-suicide campaign
Half a year too late.
It's in the way men hold their shoulders,
Wishing they were strong.
But we know, and when we say it in hushed tones to ourselves,
Hell is weakness made obvious.
Love judges weakness harshest of all,
On account of
We're most invested in how you survive this.


And does that give me public right
To your private Hell?
I pass by your window sometimes,
And I stop and watch.
Think how ironic it'd be,
Then hate myself for having thought.
This time last year, wasn't it easier?


This time last year,
Spit in the face of death
With your fantastic grace, your apocryphal silence.
Or
Perspiring with heads bowed together,
Worrying, though not worried-out yet,
Putting someone through Hell, or were you,
Or
Talking like we were friends,
Or
Far-away voices on the telephone,
IV-hooked, line and sinker,
Or
Putting down my bags at the wrong doorstep again,
And am I doing it, without intention, still?


How do I tell the difference between
Finding home and only just spinning?


What I didn't realize about Hell is
It's a fugue. Hell ends,
Even the worst days eventually toll midnight.
It's the resounding never-ending ones,
The lives lived squandered in waste,
The lies you tell at night,
Wondering if you could've saved them.
It's cowardly, but I can live
With someone else's Hell.


I'm taking coordinates to know,
Make sure I never visit.