Dead While Breathing | Poetry

1-To Live is to Fight

You stayed in an apartment of mold and years,
Spent time in its cranky chair and breathe its musty air.
Never really doing anything; never really thinking.
Doing the same job for years; it's only to keep you breathing.
Day and night,
Out and in,
Exhausted of the same things; same people, same events.
Same history, all repeated again.
Murder, rape, political arguments-you heard it all.
Same things that people fought against for years-
And you wonder when they would stop,
When they would realize how pointless it is.
How transient life is,
For any change to remain in the world.

But when death comes knocking on the door,
And you instinctively block the door-live
I want to live longer! I haven't done anything yet.
You realize why they keep fighting-
Because that's who they are-fighting for things that they believe in,
And that makes them alive,
A flaming, roaring fire that may last a moment,
But burns madly nevertheless.

They may or may not change the world,
But the fire in them can change people's lives,
One life at a time.
And small changes,
Always lead to bigger ones.

In the end,
It's the legacy left behind,
That matters.

You hadn't left anything,
That's why you aren't willing to accept death,
Because you haven't lived.
You haven't made changes to somebody's life like they had.
In your musty apartment,
You were dead all along.
You were dead while you were still breathing.