Nothing Else in This World

Death is not what I fear, but I dread death denied.
When all reason has vanished, all memory gone
And when loved ones are strangers, how can I abide

That perverted existence that settles upon
The uncounted infirm, neither living nor dead?  
When I plunge to the point where I need help to don

My own clothes in the morning, or get out of bed
Let me join buried brothers, the happily spared-
Do not feed me at all if I have to be fed.

Very lucky are corpses to zombies compared.
Even ghosts are not trapped in some rickety shell.
Will I cross the bar seamlessly, or be ensnared

Forced to languish for years in a half-living hell?
Far too many I’ve seen, unaware of their plight
Wander lost through the halls of the places they dwell.

Days without demarcation, that blur into night
Nothing else in this world gives me more of a fright.