P.S.

Sometimes it's sudden, 

without warning,

sometimes it's in view,

a tape snap

at the finish line.

Sometimes by accident,

negligence, incompetence.

Sometimes by intent.

Technical—pilot error,

gravity taking hold of helpless

passengers yanked

back to the ground.

Targeted 

as a drone strike.

Sometimes it's public, 

a journalist's beheading for the cameras.

Sometimes private, 

a back-alley knife

through the ribs,

a club to the back

of the skull.

Usually it's cruelly intimate, 

a surrounded hospital bed, 

watching, waiting,

signing off

after Sincerely, 

Yours Truly,

As Always,

Best Regards,

P.S.

of chronic, unceasing pain,

tumors bloomed in flesh

like mushrooms 

in damp rotting wood,

hands and legs useless

as stone,

brain morphine-addled,

faces like bats flitting

in a dark tunnel —

death is 

a torchlight

for the only way out.