Eighty years young
Speaking in tounge

Your body fought
Head full of bizarre thought

Arms and legs restrained
How are you not frightened

Are they violent, Yah?
We tried, everything,
for the shake of your revival

I can't bear to see you like this
I wish you are dismiss

Heavily sedated & exhausted
To tired to wrestled & agitated
Lord please take his pain away

It’s strangely busy around the deathbeds,
as well it’s my last nightshift of the year.
I try to make no noise, can you hear me?
Push my hand, if you can, move a limb.
Your breath is so slow, please keep going,
monitors flash in time with the ventilator.
I’ll control the pupils, I know it’s blinding.
No one goes with their sparkling old eyes,
we are usually fading before we are dying.

-


what do you say to someone
you love from such a distance ?

a stroke could be measured by
how far it is from the first floor
to the intensive care unit

or from the steering wheel
to the door **** of the
hospital entrance

or from your drive way to
the spot where you have to
pay for parking

or from the handset of
your telephone to his ear—

exhausted,

you can only
whisper
into it—

"i love you Daddy"

and hope this time
he can feel your
breath...


s jones
Nov 2021


.

No real connections and no restraints…
I watch you breathing and feeling faint.
I hold your hand and ask you to fight.
I will tell you, your attitude can save your life.

I know you’re alone, please know I am here.
I see you starving for oxygen, I feel your fear.
Please listen to the doctor trying to prescribe,
their knowledge and experience can save your life.

Please try my darling, you’re just too young.
Starving for oxygen can leave you high strung.
Don’t you understand the BiPAP can save your life? Or should we start the process and notify your wife?

Sweetheart, I get that this is hard!
You can’t breathe deeply, your lungs are scarred.
I know that I will always ask for too much.
We need to get you out of bed and sit you up.

But, let me tell you the other route.
If you give up, unfortunately, we have our doubts.
We might end up having to intubate…
And leave those strong wrists in soft restraints.

This is something we as nurses know,
Unfortunately, once intubated your prognosis is low.
Most Covid patients never wean off of the vent,
So say goodbye to your family and friends.

I’ll hold your hand no matter what you decide,
I’ll hold the phone to your ear listening to your families last goodbyes…
We will all cry and all of our hearts will break,
You’ll just just be another statistic the media will define as “fake.”






… please know I’ll always remember you by heart,  I’ll remember your story from end to start, I’ll never forget what you’ve been through, because that’s what we as nurses do.

Everything is black
I don’t know where I am
Everything is unknown

this couldn’t have been the plan
my body is shaking
they rush to my side
my heart is racing
theyre afraid I might die

Levels of consciousness vary
I verbalize many of sounds
My limbs are impossible to carry
In my head I am no where to be found

My eyes were open
And my mouth too
I took too many pills
I didn’t think things through
Somewhere in my mind
I’m hoping I don’t die
And my body took the controls
and said, “We have to stay alive“

There’s pieces missing of my life
I know I should have thought twice

Taking the pills
and mentally preparing my will

But knew it wasn’t right

I drove to help
So glad I did

If I had waited
I would be dead

I don’t remember much of the time
Where I was in the hospital about to die
Awake for 36 hours
But what is time?
When you’re not coherent
Everyone’s afraid you will die

Memories come in fragments
I don’t know why
I try to remember
It makes me cry
I feel like I have lost that time
I want to know what it felt like to almost die

PleAse don’t pretend
Lie to a child that somehow we are friends
Even if I try to extend
Your moving back into the future
And we won’t ever be kin

If that’s a game you’d like to play
Take your misery I’m not afraid to walk away
I didn’t make the simple mans mistake
I saw a virtue in the struggle of the wait

So when I don’t care to even glance in your eyes
Don’t act as if it’s some ill willed surprise
You had a chance just as I
And just as in that sense we are alike
I too can choose to exile your kind.

So this is me saying with clarity
You’ve exhausted all of my charity.