You Only Get One Exit

If you were born into a peaceful,
Largely egalitarian society
With universal suffrage
And excellent health care for all,

A stability that lasted throughout
All the decades of your life,
So that neither murder, war, nor torture
Invaded your personal narrative,

You would die. You as one person, one
Single instantiation of human, would die.
And if none of the nicer stuff were true
For you, you would, as one instantiation

Of a human, still die. In the latter case,
You would probably die younger, maybe
Much, much younger, and you would
Witnesss much more suffering and death,

You might know the horrors of surviving
A scene grotesque on all sides with death,
But you would still, as a single instantiation,
Die once, one way, not many more at once.

The tedious singularity of your death
Might be put aside to consider ways
Of mitigating the suffering of living,
But no such intervention will actually

Save a life or reduce your personal
Count of the body bags you stuff. Spare us
Pain. Spare us the witnessing of brutal
Behavior between us. Don’t try to save us.