I'll be strong for you

Sometimes we need someone else to live for

Paging Doctor Someone to Random Room B, Stat.
I lay in sanitized discomfort, fluffing plastic pillows flat.
Small tubes inside me contort, small enemy inside me scurries like a rat.

Betrayed by my body, I lie and I wait.
In these doctors' hands, awaiting my fate.
Awaiting a breakdown of body and mind.
After all I've witnessed and written, still surprised,
to find life so unkind.

My vision has doubled, but I fake seeing fine.
My hands have been weakened, but I still write my lines.
The headaches run rampant, but my thoughts still bring rhymes.
Until I lose this fight, this body and soul are still mine.

Defiantly, stubbornly, I arise to each day.
I force myself to live, work, and play.
To give up my joys, my ambitions, or worse.
Would truly be, the ultimate curse.

So I rise and I walk and I force myself steady.
Take pills, put on armor, and make myself ready.
A warrior to the end, a knight like I once dreamt.
I won't let you down or give up 'till I'm spent.

I refuse to go easily, into some quiet goodnight.
I won't give up the ghost, without one hell of a fight.
I may often look beaten, at times even cry.

But I stand by the words of my youth that to this day ring true.
I'll never die, and I'll stay strong for you.