A Man In The Hospital Died Today
A man in the hospital died today
I'm in the room next door when it happens. No alarms sound his death. No one is there to scream or cry.
Just two nurses, gathered round his bed like doves in blue scrubs. I hope they thought to hold his hand.
His mottled arms are folded neatly across his chest when I arrive. I study his body, instinctively looking for the rise and fall of breath. He is, of course, perfectly still. The sensors have all been removed, he is covered in a feather-light sheet. His skin, nearly translucent, glows in the sunlight.
The older of the two nurses must see my wide eyes; she beckons me and shows me what to do.
This was a good death, she tells me.
I am not convinced. She continues as she hands me a roll of gauze.
He was comfortable.
She shows me how to moisten his eyes to protect them for donation. I touch his eyelid gingerly. The cold makes me flinch. I remind myself that bodies do that when they die.
He was clean.
I place the gauze on his lids, covering his priceless eyes. I remind myself that I cannot hurt him. I still handle him as if his skin were eggshell.
The sterile water runs out from the gauze and streams down his cheek.
He wasn't alone.
More Posts from Rococobean and Others
Winterreise
etchings on zinc, 40 x 30 cm inkenstabell.com
This Spanish lesson that reads like a half finished poem
Joyous tears, the river of progress, the trail ever on to freedom, the themes, the motifs, you get it.
The mile-long rainbow flag being carried down First Avenue in New York City.
a writing prompt in the form of a haiku
“I’m not a villain!”
Spat darkly through gritted teeth;
Tears salting their cheek.
listen, the silhouette of a person is more human than AI will ever be. can you hear me? you are a body, the soul is nothing without the body, there is no consciousness without time and space, and in the computer exists neither. is this thing on?
Care in their caress
through pain pricked fingers.
Love in the weaving
of comings and goings
Pas de deux He was a mortician. She was a seamstress. They wove stories of coming and going. All the unanswered, the unclaimed, the unknown became secondary. There was a lot of rain across a parched earth and they only saw relief of the end of a dance. But one dance leads on to another and another. The joy is in the twists, the dips always righted.
I used to dream of death
or blazing, blistering pain.
A mark of martyrdom above my
twisted, tortured brain.
But now I sigh and dream of life
and care for all my wounds
No need to be a martyr
I don't need no cocoon
Me: You know how when you were a kid and you’d wish that you’d get sick or injured in a way that would justify why you didn’t live up to your potential?
Everybody, apparently: No?
-
grave-notes liked this · 3 weeks ago -
driedblue01 liked this · 2 months ago -
soxxonfoxx liked this · 2 months ago -
rococobean reblogged this · 2 months ago
