Hospitals

I am starting to remember how
The hospital lived inside of me.
and despite the anesthesia telling me
that this was peaceful solitude
My mind was never at peace
Falling through those god-forsaken words,
You will be okay.

I would hear about sick children
On the news
With bold, red text highlighting their disease.
But this time?
It happened to me.

The sharp air only ripples
A little bit, when someone screams
From down the hall.

And everything is plain. White. Serene.

For a time, there was a boy lying almost dead
In a torn hospital bed adjacent to mine.
I could hear his thoughts sometimes
Whirring in his mind like a sad tune
Everything echoing off of the nauseatingly bright
white walls.

I asked him one day
To stitch his skin
Into mine
To share our flesh.

No
the doctor says
That boy is dead.
Heart failure, she said.

I slowly turn my head.
Syringes scattered across the floor
Beads of dark blood oozing from the needle.
His skin, slowly turning into
A pale rag, a damp sickly rag
That someday, nurses will hold
And think nothing of.

I wake up the next morning
With anxiety medication
Coursing through my body.
Through my brain.

Is it over? I want it to stop. I want everything to stop.
I’d pray to God to leave this place.
But I know I have wished far too late.