Arrival and Departure

Brought in screaming
to a sterile room, harsh with fluorescent light,
no map, no compass, no stars—
each of us arrive.

Weaned from the mother,
we reach—
for the bottle of milk, sweet and pure,
then soda, fizzed with false joy,
then whiskey, heavy with regret,
then pills, silent as snow.

Taken out screaming
to a shadowed box, chilled by the weight of earth,
no map, no compass, no stars—
we vanish,
contextless as the wind.