Poem: Sonofagun, Why Me?

post by Anna Bennett
(Poem by Vidal Alcolea)

Here is the fourth poem from the blog:  Poetry on Dialysis.  It just has four entries all published in April 2008.  In an living example that CKD touches everyone, Vidal Alcolea is a published playwright, poet and artist.  His book is available here.

Vidal has a new blog: Poetry on Dialysis Continued,it is not in the traditional format that I have edited his work into as written below, it is eloquent, sometimes heartbreaking prose. With the author's permission, DSEN will be cross posting in the future.

Sonofagun, Why Me?
By Vidal Alcolea

Something is very obvious to me
after having been told my kidneys are toast and
I have to be hooked to a machine thrice a week
in order not to be history quite yet:

 I am not the same person I was before this situation developed.
And I’m not only referring
to the predictable decrease of energy levels,
testosterone levels and
Idiocy levels
which are responsible for the little happiness most men experience when healthy,
but also to the way I see the world around me.

I think about the person I was not so long ago, say,
walking down a sunny street in Toronto,
as the little front gardens bloom in early spring.
The air is still cool, the sky is a marvellous blue.

Jennifer walks next to me.
We are going somewhere in little India for dinner,
or to little Italy for a coffee,
or across the Broadview bridge to the annex,
to meet some friends at future bakery and talk about art,
or politics,
or whatever...

I am experiencing the wonderful carelessness of health.
We, Jennifer and I,
are making plans to move to Spain.
It is all in the future.
It may or may not happen.
I have no idea yet that it will happen,
that soon we will be living in northern Spain,
where I will work as a teacher and have a child,
shortly before suffering end stage renal failure and being subjected to dialysis.

Now I am on the other side of that equation.
What I did not suspect would happen,
did in fact happen.

And I remember that sweet life far away, in Toronto,
seemingly a million years ago,
and see myself and Jennifer walking down a sunny street,
and ask my self why the fuck it is that we cannot freeze time
and stay forever
in one of those happy instants we remember once they are gone,
in times of fear and grief.

Yeah, what the hell is wrong with life?

reformatted from the original source Poetry on Dialysis

Comments

[abeer hussain]

hi thanks for the ost.i need this poem part for an article of mine.do I need your permission or it is fee for non commercial share?if yes,please give me permission