The only thing worse than sitting in the waiting room
Is sitting in the waiting room waiting
For somebody else.
It’s a ritual now,
Holier than the eucharist
And more mind-numbing than meditation.
I wonder if I’ll suffer the same fate
In another 30 years,
Waiting to die in a cramped little room,
Listening to idle conversation,
Fox News propaganda,
Heavy breathing and obnoxious chewing
Sounds.
It’s like they’re hoping to strike it big
With the ultimate diagnosis –
Yep, it’s cancer.
Now you have something to bitch about.
But we’re never here for anything real.
I think about those thousands of dollars
Sometimes,
The insurance
The placebo medication
The gas to drive up here
And I assume college could have surely
Been paid off by now.
I look around and wonder if anyone else
Wants that old lady in the front seat
To just shut the fuck up already,
Spouting loud commentary
On the TV and trying to talk
To the children who are too shy
To mention how badly she smells.
Yes, someday this will be me,
Concocting excuses to make that special trip
To sit among the walker wounded
And talk about the good ol’ days
When they worked their
Mundane jobs and raised their
Mundane kids
Who mundanely sit and wait,
Lingering frustration and
Last year’s Entertainment Weekly,
All struggling to be relevant
Again.