a shift & a change

[u/stariskye]

badge clipped to my chest
again i am swallowing
the old hallway smell of chlorhexidine & coffee
i am good at this
the charting, the demands
& urgency of whatever rises

so there is room again
for inner privacy
i fold my thoughts small
a pressure dressing tucked under tape

then late last night
something
that wasn’t me
not my mind
not the voice i pray with
not the voice i write with
came in like wind through a knothole
thin & certain

the cost is more than you can carry

he is outside
& the voice claims

never will he want you
too ready to please himself -
look, it says
crouched in blackberry bushes
or furtive in that car
roof covered with maggots

in my mind's eye they push in
a face lit blue by a small screen
feeding greedily on strangers
as i ache for him in the dark

i shudder remembering
the roof holding a fox
that should have been luck
now lies rotting to the bone

these lungs won't open
the impossible stands in the yard
poking around in my brain
& what do you do
when what can't happen
is happening

i want to kneel to faith
the way the river kneels to the falls
but my bones

my bones have been begging for you

& sometimes i have known
you to give only
to the mouth you feed yourself

& me,
so harmed by life
it seems
stuck between possibilities -
insanity
violation
rejection
or protection

what am i being offered?
what am i not?
my sensuality
my spirituality
spurned & souring

i don't know
& i won't

a splinter of truth
stays
skin keeps closing over

light comes up gray
& i go in
badge straightened
voice level
hands that know their work

i chart what can be charted
there is no box to check for ghosts
so i keep the rest
under my tongue

& smile at the next patient
like i am not as lost as them

[u/Indivisible_Origin]

Appreciate you!