Palliative

Bearing well, enduring easily,
Especially when sick—any world
Really and truly worth living in,

Long life or short, would have to be one
In which no one needed medicine
To bear up well, easily endure,

Where the feeling of euphoria
Was not some short-term, addictive high
That needed more and more medicine

To recover, to rediscover,
But just the natural way of things,
Euphoric from beginning to end.

Don’t claim that it’s the pain that makes us
Understand joy. Make us euphoric.