Old age suicide

This is about realizing your own mortality. Knowing that the end is near. Do you rush the inevitable?

Old Age Suicide

By Shawn P Cassidy

Another dawn breaks thin and pale,

another year slips off the scale.

The body weakens, thoughts grow slow,

and time becomes the final foe.

The hours stagger, cracked and worn,

each one heavier than the morn.

The mirror shows a fading spark,

a man half-buried in the dark.

Far off, the heavens hum a tune,

a dirge beneath a dying moon.

Each tick, each grain, each whispered beat

draws death a step closer to his feet.

He feels the reaper’s patient stare,

a shadow breathing in the air.

Not hunting" simply waiting still,

as old men do when fate fulfills.

And in that hush, a question stirs:

must he endure what soon occurs?

Or walk the path a moment fast,

and meet the end that comes at last?

No glory in the thought he keeps,

no thrill in where the darkness creeps.

Just weary bones and thinning breath,

and the quiet truth of nearing death.

The reaper does not raise his blade,

nor beckon him into the shade.

He only watches, calm and near,

as the old man thinks and weighs his fear.

And in the space between two breaths,

between the living and what’s left,

he wonders if he dares to stand

and take the reaper’s outstretched hand.

© 2026 Shawn P. Cassidy. All rights reserved