By Dr. Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Ashford and St Peter’s Clinical End of Life Lead, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077

Pah! 
Dying, it’s hardly fashionable, is it? 
It’s like it is all the rage…
(That was a Dylan Thomas reference, in case you missed it),
But it’s hardly vogue, is it? 

I mean, who can take it seriously? 
One moment, alive! 
The next – dead. 
Even auto correct would rather I spelt Read
Than Dead.

What a laugh, a joke, a nothing,
I can hardly take it seriously,
I’m sorry, I’m too unique. 
No.
I’m afraid it’s life for me. 

You can go now. 
Au’ revoir, off you go,
Shoo.

Are you still here?
Stop looking at me like that,
It’ll do no good, I’m going nowhere. 

I think I’ll take a nap now,
Good bye,
See you tomorrow.
So tired.
Bye.

A note by the author: it had been a very long week of conversations when this poem came, unbidden, in to my mind. It arrived fully written by an unseen editor and unlike almost everything I write ordinarily it has stayed in its original state without alteration, for that I apologise. As with all forms of art, even pale imitations like mine, I feel it is for the reader to interpret but I hope that it brings forth an emotion and that that emotion helps those who read it find a moment of reflection, as I did when I wrote it.