As I lay here dying
I am finally at peace.
I am finally at home.
Away from diseases,
Where cleanliness is next to fordliness.
My World State is where I belong.
With soma-holidays
I can experience eternity.
I stay here in my room with twenty others
In a sixty-story tower
In the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying .
I lay in bed
day in and day out
Enjoying endless holidays.
The television is blaring
Yet I can not hear a sound.
I am surrounded by yellow walls
And the constant presence of perfume.
I have all the luxuries of a first class hotel.
Sometimes I think back to when we were in Malpais
So dirty, so filthy.
No hot water to be found.
And the clothes
So many holes to mend.
It was just wrong.
‘The more stitches, the less riches.’
The effects of aging there are revolting.
My skin began to sag
And my body became to fat to bear.
And the way people had each other there.
No one should have more than one person.
How can that be?
When “everyone belongs to everyone else.”
My dear, my dear.
I tried to condition you,
But without knowledge of so many things
Conditioning was too difficult.
I used to sing to you.
Childish rhymes
Like Streptocock-Gee to Banbury T.
Do you remember the reading lessons?
The reading instructions for Beta workers.
You gave me such comfort my son.
Without you,
I would not have survived in Malpais
But yet,
because of you I couldn’t come back to where I belonged
Because I am a mother.
You are what separated me from my world.
My son,
You are my greatest love
You are my greatest regret.
