The therapist I went with trepid heart.
My happiness and my head far apart.
She smiled delightful air; she’s angel eyed.
I bet she’s New Age, to myself I sighed.
‘Your problem,’ says she, ‘you’re on a death train.
And this gives rise to suffering and pain.
All the tracks of this world end in the grave.
Hence you despair and come to me to save.
Alas, your salvation comes only through you.
All are called but answer only a few.
Why I am called the deadly therapist.
It’s that I see through the fog and the mist.
And see that it’s you that is to be shred.
And this gives rise to existential dread.’
‘What do you mean?’ I hastened to ask.
‘To flee the death train you so tightly grasp,
You must,’ she said, ‘when you come to that fork.
Not go along with the commoners walk.’
‘Is this ‘The Road less Travelled,’ Robert Frost.
The poem that’s recipe for getting lost?’
She replied. ‘Better the devil you know…
is the fake line that denies you your glow.
This world seems real but it’s mere illusion.
In truth it’s cloaked by death train’s confusion.
You do not really want this world you see.
It’s disappointed you for you are not free.
The price you pay is your long dark nightmare.
The strategies you’ve tried have led nowhere.
For nothing’s but wrecked by the wrath of time.
The airwaves speak only trouble and crime.
For everything here is death hard-wired.
Hold this world not dear; it’s old and tired.
Why not give eternity your best shot.’
I blinked both eyes for this I expected not.
‘Sit quietly,’ she said, ‘And close your eyes.

Think a happy world where nobody dies.
A world without decay, break-ups and tax.
Where people don’t fight and truly relax.
Where there are no shops, no landfill eyesores.
A world without the need for more and more.
A world not lit by artificial light.
Where day grows not dim for there is no night.
Where suffering is gone, loss is never.
And nothing is there that shines not forever.’
‘You’re advocating suicide,’ I cried.
She smiled as she told me I’m the one fried.
Says I, ‘your youth makes you a happy one.
Your beauty life’s harshness hasn’t undone.
In time you’ll grow cynical and tire.
And lose your now effervescent fire.’
‘Your reverence to the death train,’ she said.
‘Is ubiquitous and messes your head.’
‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘death train’s your metaphor.
There’s surely better wording to aim for.’
At this, she surprised me with a firm hug.
Did I react with frown or with a shrug?
She undeterred brought forth a cuddly song.
About her I thought something is really wrong.
‘So kiss me,’ she sang, ‘and pray smile with me,
Tell me that you will come along with me.
I will hold you tightly through all your pain.
Because now, we are leaving the death train.’
‘Death train,’ I echoed, loosening my grasp.
Memory came of loving Mammy’s rasp.
A fleeting long absent moment in time.
When I was soothed by nature’s sweet vine.
Says she, ‘I am the deadly therapist.
All who come here are deeply pessimist.’
I said I thought that the song said “jet plane”
And nary a mention of her “death train”.
‘John Denver,’ says she, ‘it was in a plane.
His mortal coil of temporary life slain.
Does this not strengthen my invitation?

to join me in immortal salvation?
For there are but two roads: one leads to death,
The other I feelt gains love’s unending melt.
Let’s remember unnecessary is pain.
Let’s disembark the death for the bliss train.’
‘Train spotting,’ says I, ‘was a boyhood fix.’
‘Train jumping hardly now’s giving me kicks.’
‘You’re smiling,’ she said, ‘you came looking glum.
You, I, together, we’ve only just begun.’
‘That sounds a bit like marriage vows,’ says I
She gave me the tender enchanting eye.
‘No’ she said, ‘That says till death do us part
That’s yet more reverence to death’s blackheart.
Think not yourself as a mere mortal fling.
From now on, make infinity your thing.’
‘So take me now as your forever bride.
To hold onto in infinity ride.’
Why do the call you deadly therapist?’
She answered, ‘Because they’re in the abyss.’
Thinking that life is death and death is life
And not even getting along with the wife.
Refusing to face this life’s a death wish.
Not intuiting a far better dish.
Prefer to be happy than to be right.
That is the formula that brings delight.
Whilst they insist on arguing beliefs.
They hold one another in latent grief.
Whilst you behold your worldview is right.
You block yourself from receiving the light.
Are you inspired now to take the plunge?
Or stay a perpetual misery grunge?’
‘Are you a sorcerer, a seducer?’
I asked, thinking I’d like to seduce her.
For when you’re floundering in the abyss
Any seducer will do for a kiss.
‘Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven,’ she said
And all else will be added as you head.
On happier detours away from pain.

But to do that you must leave the death train.
I know it’s hard for we’re all addicted,
And, without knowing, deeply afflicted.
Everything born in time will die in time.
Let us not wait for the funeral chime.