the deathbed conversion

when the sick one laying there
looked around for their “loved ones,”
all they saw were white coats &
when the white coats left them,
all they saw were white walls &
when they squinted their little eyes
closed, to try & talk to
“him” (whatever fictional character(s)
that they’d devoted a large portion of
their life to---typically the latter “i’m
dying” years),
all they got was silence---
still babbling to themselves in their own
head,
trying to convey a message to that “force”
which they’d been told all the time
worshipping,
that was supposed to come & console them
in their time of greatest need,
but alas,
nothing came---
alas,
no one said a word to them &
time passed, as it does,
regardless of whether allah, jesus, buddha,
moses, muhammad, yahweh, santa claus or
the goddamned easter bunny
is supposed to show---
so at last, in those final moments,
the dying decided that all along
they’d been following the herd,
they’d been believing a special kind of lie,
they had been
deceived
by people who weren’t even in the room,
when the shit hit the fan &
there was a deathbed conversion,
but it was to
disbelief---
but there was no
i-told-ya-so believer
waiting with a legion of video cameras &
recording devices of all shapes & colors,
as they do when they come to
taint a public nonbeliever’s reputation
for all of eternity,
when one is at their weakest in a bed
alone,
breathing their last breaths---
because, no one wants to be proven
wrong,
especially when they’re doing their
damndest, to prove themselves
right.