on being kept alive

'Dragging lollipop shards across my wrist' I love the visuals in this and the first half of the final stanza just rolls off the tongue, the last two lines make you want to keep reading which leaves the ending sort of suspended in your mind. Love the sentiment behind it too. One of my favourites of yours.

I can see your anger in this. do the technicians do it for medical science, to see how long they can extend life, when there is no other purpose? should the switch be unreachable?...

I don't think it should be unreachable. I am an RN on a vent unit.  The child at the kill switch is the adult child of the person being kept alive.  They can't reach it because they are too small, too immature.  The patient can't reach it because they are too feeble.  and because of the will to survive.  although they may be cognitively absent, there is a drive to sustain their life even when they want it to end.  just as a suicidal person wanting to die hesitates at the last moment before committing the act.

I'd prefer to go out in a ball of fire with my own horrified audience screaming & applauding the excitement. But when that time comes, I'll be trying to talk my way out of it. It would be nice if we could just expire at the allotted time & not have to worry about reaching the switch. Doesn't work that way, I know, I know.

It's a difficult circle you've weaved in free verse here. Makes me wonder if human beings are simply living for too long these days...the magnitude of life & death depending on a switch. I hope I never live long enough to want death to come, yet I hope to live for a very long time. Life is hard, & death is release, but I hope to keep life all the same...depending on the quality of that life, I suppose. You've led my mind to a dark (yet most insightful) place with this piece.

Very interesting, has a nice flow. Some good imagery ( bathing in acid), prehaps more would make it even better. I also find it amazing how the snake never chokes.