Post-Traumatic

Sleep
is to be avoided
or hastened somehow
when memories run rampant in the dark
making the weary want to cry out...

When in the drear nightmares set the tone
The night is a leaden blanket
in which one waits, alone...
For dawn to come and only then to rest
perhaps
the burning sun
will chase away the memories
Which one would rather forget
that cause the dreamer to toss and turn
Sheets drenched in clammy sweat...

So long it has been since those faces have paraded
Across my eyelids
Closed so tight...
The harder I bid them,
GO AWAY,
the closer they come each night...

tubes and drains and broken bodies
the blood was the least horror
the worst was what doctors did in the name of heroics
when they truly could do no more...
all those patients
subjected to the cruelty
in an effort to regain a semblance of life...
souls withdrawning to protect the mind
from the tortorous endless strife...
Presented to these victims
In the form of a sin--
The austere lack of compassion
Of modern medicine...
Wounds left open, "She'll die soon, anway...why close it when it won't heal?" BUT SHE is STILL ALERT! I always wanted to say...
As the patients, women, all, told their stories time and time again...sharing with me the horror
At the wounds from outside to deep within
Where surgeons did not think it worth the while
To give the patient peace of mind...
a bandage where stiches should have been
THey never closed the wound!
The patients were alert and talking,
And ALL of them KNEW!

And I saw this only
On women, I reiterate, too...

The horrors imposed by medical men
When they don't know what to do
But have lost any semlence of compassion...
And comprehension of another's view...

I listened empathetically
I've held hands with folks as they have said,
"This is the last trip for me..."

There is no way to comfort the dying other than just holding a hand
Words are meaningless
Because there is no way one can pretend they understand...
The fear, the pain, the utter disdain for the monster the doctors made them become...
why does the heart keep on beating after the mind is already gone?

There is both beauty and cruelty in death
And each person has a story they want to have told...
A confessor, I sit close and listen
So that a life won't be seemingly forgotten...
At the end of a life
There is something like birth
Where everyone looks the same...in hospital gowns
With pain-induced frowns... but what makes the situation worse...
Is that when you are born
The story is just beginning
The book is all blank pages...
But at the end of the life
The book is full
With the wisdom of the sages
Who live amongst us for years...

These sages, both young and old
Are the skeletons
I cherish yet fear...
Teachers and ghouls
Though never by choice...
Angels and demons at the same time drawing near...
Each one a lesson,
A life learned, lost or sustained...
The dread inside my heart endures...

The dread too monstrous for me to feel
Conscious and awake...
Consumes my dreams where emotions rule
And in fear I shake...

There is no way to placate the faces
Sometimes I try to make them smile
And envision wings about their heads
And envision them being safe in heaven
But the effect is fleeting, only lasting such
A short while...

Then the drear returns and I find
That while a soul is in heaven
It's left a print on my mind
And that it is both a blessing and curse
To be one of the last strangers
One has seen on this earth...
And to try to comfort the dying
One has never met before
And though it seldom works, to keep trying...
As they stand near heaven's door...

The worst was the quite prayers
Frantically uttered admist administering pf skills...
Please, sir, STAY ALIVE!
Your family wants to say goodbye, still!

The good ones that were sad yet beautiful
Were those where someone was helped
An old man got one last walk through his house
As my partner and I helped...
Wheeling him on the stretcher
Helping to raise his head...
So he could see his house rebuilt after a fire
his children gathered around his dying bed...
Those are the beautiful, proper ones...

The worst, though, is the lonely ones...
Children living
But barely kept alive
By some odd force managing to survive..
One never expects to see a mother holding her infant
Explaining how it has
"Failure to Thrive..."

The child left in a bed in a diaper
Staring at the wall

The patients no matter how careful we were
They had such great pain
The slightest motion hurt them all...

The older ones, the forgotten ones.
Who barely know their names...
screamed at by weary aides with bitterness...
brought to tears and shame
For no crime at all...

but then there were those moments
that were beautiful though sad
the man tending to his comatose wife
with such love
She was all he truly had...
In the Projects late at night
The husband trying to do everything right...
She never responded to the kiss of his lips
her eyes gazed forward
he must have missed
His wife, his lover, his best friend
But to her body
He did tend...
And his old tough hands showed such gentle care
As he helped lift her to her bed and tuck her in
As we were standing there...

Ah those dark nights,
Just like this one,
It seems if I let my mind run...
I feel still the edgy, guarded fear
Hidden beneath a calm veneer
Feel my muscles tensing
Against some unseen threat...

The faces rule the night...
And try as I might...
I am not allowed, it seems,
To forget.
posted by Reenie at 6/05/2006 12:50:00 AM 0 comments