Austin Lam, Medical Student
University of Toronto
Gargling on the foul-tasting, unexpelled vomit
That is my dread and worry,
I am repelled by the product of my own person.
It chokes and I lose my breath.
The drive to preserve my own body has
Rendered my soul nil.
For naught! For naught! For naught!
And yet Carry on! Carry on! Carry on!
Base instincts emerge fully,
Cloaked under an uncanny blanket of light,
Radiating from Todestrieb.
It comforts and it kills.
The impulse to save; to act; to be brash:
We need the Heroes!
Equally, a voice is heard.
“J’accuse!” — adulterated noblesse oblige.
The morally courageous
Return to the people
The Gift of an ethic of care.
Simultaneously, so much ripped away.
Recuperation seeming inevitably impossible,
The foul-taste invades every waking moment.
Necrotizing innards of the mind
Cannot be recovered to what once was.
