Life, Death and Sadly Enough Nickleback

I was working the other day,
mindlessly droning away my existence.
The radio was buzzing
the soundtrack to my misery.

Song after song.
Pop hits from yesterday and today
play one after another
again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again...

Suddenly Nickleback's "If today was your last day"
burst the seams of the store's speaker,
cutting through my usual dull disgust
to drill down to my deeply repressed revulsion.

I HATE THIS SONG

This song makes me want to kill myself.
Ironic.
This tonic of suicide inducing sonics
suck the light out of my soul and crush the only thing I know.

Life

Thanks Nickelback, thanks a lot!
Radio trash rock.
Blood clot in the brain of pop.
Chuck Norris look alike is on my butcher block.

"If today was your last day
and tomorrow were too late..."
The muscles in my eye twitch out of frustration
while my heart beats with desperation

I try to fight the nauseating feeling of distress,
the gloom mortification
that comes when I realize
How fruitless my life may be

It's as if Satan himself had penned these lyrics
just for me
in order to drag me down to the world of sorrow and despair
that is his dark wood

Unavoidably my thoughts turn
as I ask myself the question at hand:
if this really was my last day.
What then?

My spirit sinks as I realize
all the things that I haven't done.
All the dreams unfulfilled
and all the love that remains unrequited.

I didn't get around to seeing Dr. Furnish for the last time
to tell her that I still think she is the greatest teacher ever.
And I didn't make it back to school for a degree in
something.

I couldn't travel
to Iceland, Oregon or France
or to see Sigur Ros
and kiss at the crescendo of Ara Bartur.

New friends half a world away
remain unmet.
While Old friends lost to time
were left unreconciled

I never made love
in the summer, in the fall, in the winter, or in the spring.
I never told anyone how much I love them
or how much I needed them.

I wasn't able to see the birth of my first child
and hold her or him in my arms and stare into their beautiful eyes.
I never got the chance to teach my son how to play baseball
or see my daughter off on her first date.

I just wouldn't sit down to write that book,
just to show myself that I could do it.
I rarely worked at something that I loved
because I loved it.

I never learned to treasure each new wrinkle on her face
as we both grow old together.
Nor to learn to just sit and let time go by.
I don't know what true love really means.

I feel all of this in a rush
as that pernicious song
muddles its way through
verse, chorus, verse, and bridge.

It drags my wake
with each of its trite pronouncements.
I feel dead
long before this terrible song ends.

But still the awful question remains,
the one I would that no one ask of themselves.
What might I do
if this were my last night?

I would thank you all
for letting me speak.
I would say that you're doing fine at living
but that you could do better.

I would race to my family.
I'd beg their pardon for all the misdeeds I have done.
I would forgive my parents of their faults
toward me.

I would pray to God,
telling him that I could have done better
and should have done better.
I would ask that he but seal my heart for his.

I would try to find you
just to tell you that I do love you
and that I need you so very much
no matter how silly it may sound.

But no matter what,
I would seek simply to be happy
and learn to feel what is beyond this life
and hope that it is much more exceptional.

However I feel that it is not my time (thankfully).
Many of us, if not all, will live another day.
I would ask that you never live a day as if it were your last.
Instead, persist as if it were your first.