Fermented dreams.

Side by side an escalator of infusions

Holds us tightly as we rise

Strangers sitting together to experience the same quiet torture

A hope contained in bags and jabs

To fight an invisible evil

Contained in twisted genes that

Tell no stories and predict no future

We each of us see and occasionally

Talk together, each wondering

Who will be the lucky one

Who outlives the expectant unknown

Life at all costs takes a different

Meaning when the cost is all Life.

Infernal torture winds through our minds

Each twitch and pain representing

Success and simultaneous failure

Of the treatment that we subject ourselves to.

For hope we sacrifice all except regret.