DNR

my glacier blues stared down into the darkest browns.

I said, "I don't want be brought back. Be it a sudden death, stroke, whatever, maybe a heart attack.  Let me go if its my time.  If its my turn I'll gladly go, hey, even in my prime."

the darker didn't understand,  or didn't want know.
I was saying goodbye if it was my time to go....

I am DNR.
Arguing on their point to want to live. They didn't get too far.

They made threats, bickered, but I just smiled and said, "Its ok baby. I'm a sensitive RockStar..." 

With a DNR

This is misplaced guilt
watching you spiral,
I have to remind myself
it's not my fault.

I can't bring myself
to care the same again,
We were never meant
to last as long as we did.

Self destruction is
all too familiar.
I wouldn't wish it on anybody,
it's not your fault.

I'll always wish you
the best happiness.
You know a girl like me,
I was never meant to be  yours.

How these tables have turned,
there's somebody that will
Be there like you once were.
But I won't be at fault.

I choose to follow my
heart to bliss,
Nothing will stop me
from this.

I hate to say it,
but I hope you can
Follow your chest.
You know you've got it
For a reason.

If you're a patient in a hospital, wouldn't you want to know
exactly how many people have died in the room
                                                                 you're currently sleeping in?    
                           How many hearts have stopped beating, how many
                                                               lungs have deflated, how many
pupils have stopped responding to light—
                                                          ­                 how long CPR was
                                                                ­             performed before
                                                                ­            Time     of     Death
                                                           ­                       was called?
How many DNR patients waltzed into the afterlife
without so much as a half-hearted chest compression?

Ribs can break during CPR.
How many cracked ribs have echoed
                                                                ­  across the walls of your
                                                                ­            hospital room?

                                                           x

Eve was made from Adam's rib.
God plucked the bone and
                                                                ­                  fashioned it into a
                                                                ­             subservient woman to
                                                                ­               replace the wild one,
                                                                   the first one, the no good one,
                                     the woman made from the same soil as Adam:
      Lilith.

                                                           x

We break ribs, break wishbones, break most things we don't understand. A confused patient will take out his IV, his PICC line, even pull at his chest tube or his LVAD driveline.
If it doesn't make sense, we will try to eliminate it in the sake of
                                                                ­                               normality.

                      ­                                     x

Some time in August, we had two codes within one hour.  After 30 or so minutes of chest compressions, they pronounced the second man dead.  He wasn’t my patient that night, and I didn’t know him.  I think his ribs snapped under Alyssa’s hands when she tried to revive him.
                                                            ­      And what does that feel like?   Not just the desperate rush of adrenaline,
        of trying to bring someone back to life—not just the emotional,
                                                                ­           but the physical of it all.

The cracking of the bone beneath the heels of your hands.  
Your fingers laced on top of each other
                                                                ­ pounding and
                                  pounding and
                                                                ­                                  pounding
                                                           against the sternum.  
One, two.  One, two.  One, two.  
                                                          ­            The bone cleaves in half.
And how much pressure does it take?  
I’m sure science could tell us, but
                              how does it feel in your arms, in your shoulders—
                       will your muscles remember the strength it takes and
                                                      stop you next time?

                                                           x

How hard did God have to try when he ripped out
         Adam's rib to make Eve? And
                           how long did it take Adam to recover from the loss?
(Maybe he never did.)

                                                           x

Healthcare is still so barbaric.  You must hurt to help.  
                               Saw through the sternum to get to the heart.  
                 Insert a painful tube to remove the excess fluid.  
                             Drill through the skull and remove
                        potentially useful brain matter.

I have nightmares of tripping over IV tubing and
ripping out PICC lines.   I am terrified of
dropping someone's chest tube on the floor,
                                                 of it ripping violently out of their lungs.
It's not my blood, it's some else's,
                                               and that makes it so much worse.  
                    Being responsible for another human's well-being
                                             is actually terrifying.

I just want to be helpful.  I don’t want to hurtful.  But so often,
                                         I find myself damaging the ones I love.

                                                           x

I would rather have my brain-dead sternum sawed open than
rot in some hole in the ground like my mother if it
                                                        would mean that I could be useful.
                                                   And all we really want is to be useful.
To feel something.  To be something.  
To be proud like the original sin.

Remove my ribs.  All 24 of them.  
Make them into several new women with
several new names and
                                           faces and
                                                            eye colors and
                       skin colors.
Their lives would be more beneficial than my death ever could be.

Like Eve with Lilith, replace the bad, with the seemingly good.  
                                                         Replace the soil with the body.
                                                  It all has to come from somewhere.  

                                                           x

                     How to keep the self close and yet distant from trauma.

Dnr blissful task at heart in session
Dnr what was my time because anew life afoot
Dnr what's seemly dreamless and painless
Dnr my breathless yield toward impending wake theme
Dnr because I need to behold whom through unfettered rest to lay my consciousness down
Ooh gawd toward my only outspoken dawn do not respond

Tie my heart to an anchor and
Drop it into the sea
Blow bubbles into my lungs
And just let them be

Do not pull me apart and fix me
Do not even try
Just leave my veins tangled
Let me bleed -- watch me die

Because you cannot fight
When there is no more war
You cannot run
Without running too far

Tie my heart to an anchor and
Throw it into the sea
Blow bubbles into my lungs
And
     Do
         Not
             Resuscitate
                 **Me

In an instant, I’m back in that two-bedroom
apartment on Monte Park Ave, in old town Fair Oaks. Where family photos and live plants cluttered the already small space. It was a Monday night, February 13,2012, the day before Valentines Day, doing a routine visit to see my mama. The woman, who had birthed and loved me, as best as she could, with the tools life had equipped her with. This visit was different I could sense it. The moment I stepped foot onto that beige carpet and looked into her sunken green eyes. The cancer, cirrhosis and hepatitis C that had eaten at her liver the last two and a half years was coming to an end. My mother was a hardened woman, hardened by life. Crimes that had been committed against her and crimes she’d committed against herself continually ate at her. She was still able to shower an immense, unconditional love on us kids; in the days she was able to function, without the inevitable numbing. Those days didn’t last long, until she’d check out again.
As an adult the childhood ghosts of her past, were relived through her. So much to the point she allowed the destruction and pain to take ahold of her thoughts and entire being. The darkened corners of her life would begin to suffocate her.
As kids we’d often wake to her drunken blackouts after the town bars closed. She’d destroy the furniture in my home, demolishing anything within arms reach. Police would come often, we would hide…fearful…always fearful. She would sober up and check herself into rehab and do well for a while. We always hoped it would just one day end and she would be okay. The cycle just seemed to continue, for years, then decades. We would see fragments of her amazing personality, deep gentle heart and willingness to love hard and stay tough. Then it would be wiped away and knocked out of her when she’d run. Slowly, we lost pieces of her throughout the years.
My mom came to know a relationship with God in the last years of her life. I could sense a peace within her, but it was plain to see, she still carried regrets. Alcohol and drugs were her numbing medicine of choice to drown out the pain of the past. Even in her last days, she’d attempt to drink away the pain. I’d hold her feeble hands, sitting on her couch and pray with her. Pray for peace to finally consume her mind. Ever since I was a child, I had always felt like her mother. I wanted to save her, protect her, help her to see her worth in God.

It was just three months prior to her diagnosis, and I had found her cold and almost lifeless on her apartment floor. She had attempted suicide. It was late at night. I hadn’t heard from her in two days. I had that motherly gut wrenching feeling that something wasn’t right. Remembering the key I had to her apartment, I rushed out the door in only a bathrobe to check on her. I unlocked her front door; my heart hit the ground as I carefully turned the living room corner, to see her body, still, by the foot of her bed. In a numb haze, I checked her pulse and lifting her off the floor, I wailed and called on the name of Jesus, Jehovah Rapha – the God who heals, El – Shaddai – an almighty God. Peace flooded the room as I claimed this womans broken life and soul in his name. I laid her on her bed and held her, waiting for the ambulance to come. Those next four days in the hospital were torturous. As her body fought to rid itself of the toxins she’d consumed in an attempt to end the misery. Handcuffed to the hospital bed, I watched her sweat, cry and wail. I would pray. He’s here. He’s the healer. Even in that state God loved my mother, she was his child, even when she was most unlovable, he held her.

It is now, less than three years later, that I am watching her life slowly drain.
I can distinctly remember the aroma that I woke to, on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012. Having slept a horrid nights sleep, on my mothers’ living room floor the night before. I knew the end was near.
I would wake hourly to check on her, while she was asleep on her couch. Normally, she would take her meds every three hours. This night, she had slept more than ten straight hours. Drenched in sweat, she awoke. She called to me to help her to the bathroom. Her husband and I each held her arms and pulled her to her feet. Halfway to standing she began to hemorrhage blood. Gallons, literally gallons of blood spilled out of her. Her husband began to scream. We were never prepared for this. Never was hemorrhaging mentioned in all of the hospice nurse and doctors visits. Unable to call 911 due to the DNR (do not resuscitate) forms my mom signed. We slowly walked her to the bathroom. Blood poured out of her body in what seemed to be the longest walk ever, leaving a trail of what was left of her life down that hallway.
Expecting her to collapse, doing my doggone best to act calm as her husband cried and screamed frantically. We laid towels over the toilet and sat her down hoping to stop the hemorrhaging and call the hospice nurses to come to her home. Once I let go of the grip I had on my moms arm, I grabbed Drews face and ordered him to breathe and quit screaming. My mother sat, silent, she looked up at us, our hands and feet covered in blood, both frantically searching for the nurses numbers in our cell phones in a shaky mess. She quietly said, “please calm down”. I wrapped my arms around her, sitting there looking faint, expecting for her to hit the floor at any moment.
No child should ever have to see their mother bleed to death. I felt as though I was in a dream. Everything was hazy. Yet, God was there. I could only rely on his strength to keep me calm, to handle the situation, as Drew lost his mind and my mom was quickly losing life.
This couldn’t possibly be the end, I said to myself. Gently lifting her to her feet, we guided her down the remainder of the hall, to her bedroom; to the hospital bed she would spend her remaining days on. I stripped my mom of her blood-drenched clothing. Bathed and diapered her, as she had to me for many years as an infant. Those last days felt like an eternity. Going home to shower and take a short break from the death unfolding in front of my eyes, I was fearful she would slip away in my one-hour absence. I went to the store to buy my momma the last bouquet of roses I would ever give to her. I lit the candle next to her flowers. I played music, read and sang to her in those last hours. Massaged her hands and feet with lotion, as I’m sure she did to me as a baby. I prayed for her and over her. Watched her husbands’ heart break into a billion pieces, as he would walk around their apartment and cry. Still then, God was there.

“ With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love”.
Ephesians 4:2

Amidst the pain, the known regrets, fear and sadness, he’s the comforter. Not understanding why my eyes and heart had to burned with such tragic memories in watching her suffer, Gods peace lied there and he strengthens when we have none.

“ I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me”.
Phillipians 4:13

That final night, I had known. Sitting in the living room with one of my dearest friends Shawna and Drew,
I stood up “ we need to go check on her “ I said, as I stepped in her room, she was struggling to take her last breaths. Her husband ran to the far side of the bed and held onto her, wailing. I grabbed her hand and my friend grabbed mine.
She was fighting to breathe, her arms flailing.
I told her it was ok to go. To finally let go.
I fought to speak those words to her and to make them sound believable. Wishing she could just climb up off of that bed, healthy and smiling and hold me.
When she took her last breath. I watched her body lose its vibrancy. Shaken and strangled with anxiety, I threw up on the floor next to her bed. Having known the struggles and regrets this precious woman bore in her lifetime…and how at that moment…she’d have given anything to redo it.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”
Psalm 103:12

Do I know if my mother truly believed an all-consuming savior that died for us wholly loved her?
I don’t.
Do I have complete contentment that she passed with all the peace that God intended for us to have?
I don’t.

Which has led me to this. When the fateful day of my existence here on earth, ceases to watch another sunrise…what will my precious babies have to say of me?
I have nurtured every one of them; kissed chubby piggy toes and sang silly songs.
I, like many, have made heart-wrenching mistakes despite knowing Gods love for me.
All in an attempt to fill a God shaped whole in my heart.

“Those who rest in the shelter of the most high will find rest in the shadow of the almighty.”
Psalm 91:1

What will my beautiful daughters and handsome son be able to reflect upon, after my passing?
Perhaps this was his plan after all.

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes”
Psalm 119:71

He is in fact the author.

“O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off”
Psalm 139:1-2

Every intricate detail of my life, from the gory to treacherous to beautiful and serene was written.
God gives first, second, third, fourth, fifth , sixth and beyond chances, just waiting for me to see who I am…in him.
In this short 30 years of my life, I’ve fallen short.
What matters, is the here, the now and the tomorrow.
Can I actually attain all of the attributes of the woman in Proverbs 31?

“Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also praiseth her”
Proverbs 31:28

Will my children be able to say this of me?
Will my sleepy eyed babies awake to drunken rages, as I did as a child…or a woman on her knees in prayer at suns rising?
I will strive daily, hourly, minute by minute to fight back the rising of my flesh, any hateful words that might ******* and distractions from what life is really created for…all on my knees before a God whose love consumes.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

I will not
Breathe life
Into the past
Dead is dead.

There would be no confusion of CPR conflicting the act, or any loud voices shouting ‘Clear!’ And I’d be clear of it all. I would no longer have to live painfully. I wouldn’t have to live life trying to make sense of broken pieces I never had any business breaking.

Do Not Resuscitate me. If I die prematurely, Death is on time. Premature to you and time, based on whose standard, yours or mine?

Truthfully if I was dying I wouldn’t want you stop trying to resuscitate me and you can bet that I’m terrified and I’m waiting to have my eyes open, meeting yours with the tears cuddling your pupils and you get upset with me for wanting to go so early and this fairytale story ends with us living happily ever after, but...

That’s not the happily ever after I want after near death experiences - I want it now.

DNR
No
NHM

*****, Help Me!

My computer screen hurts my eyes.
Thousands and thousands of photons leap forth
from tinted glass, bringing light and beauty but
also pain.

My irises are lucky, they have steeled themselves
with sheets of toasted almond.
Had they built with blue, who knows what pain would have been caused.
Beauty is too delicate.

Dilation.
Unwanted energy springs into my mind,
reverse geysers spraying fountains
which are less wet but no less scalding.

The optic nerve has pinned up a sign
nailed to splintered pine boards:
DNR
right next to another of beige tin:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE LESIONED

But the neurons have had enough
of old man optic nerve
and they shoot gold, white, and alabaster
action potentials
down his throat,
forcing him to cough up his life blood
to the brain

Drips of sparkling joules pour onto
my posterior hypothalamus.

Pathways primed by years of restlessness
sparkle with the nexus of neural lightning fueling my insomnia.

Light never dies,
it just gets born again.
And I will never sleep,
I merely slip through shadow to shine again.

I signed the DNR form
And steeled myself
As if this cancer were a battle I could fight with my fists
I felt like a man
Standing before the open mouth of a cave marked midnight
Like grimaced teeth and the desire for life were enough
To withstand the fire the chemo caused my skin
It made my skin crawl some nights

I was sure I would wake just bone
Until I looked just bone
Like an ill fitting skin sheet
Draped over a science project
And enough voice to remind whoever heard me
That I was somehow still human

I felt like a man
Who could do this alone or die trying
That if I were given a scalpel
I could cut this out of me
Pull out whatever caused this
It would look like a gnarled black ball
Humming contently
Like lip shushed fingertips
Begging for silence

I chewed on my pillow
Until my jaw taught me to sleep

I felt like a man
At the end of a road
Who finally realized
The difference between battles you fight with your fists
And battles you fight with caves marked midnight
And battles you fight in a sweat drenched hospital bed
That smells like bleach
And makes you miss home
Battles that remind you
No matter what sort of man you feel like
There is always something
That can make you feel like a child

I feel lost
the holes in my memory
are too numerous to count.
I become a green-eyed monster
when friends brag about vacation & trips
even though I have taken more trips
to superior locations.
I do not remember.

The minuscule fragments of
my childhood paint a depressing picture.
Abandonments, death after death after death,
Homelessness, loneliness, imperfectness.
My memories have collectively signed a DNR.
They are unrecoverable.
Lost forever in the holes my mind created
to prevent insanity.

We have a checkered past
I call it a story,
Inevitability,
Or something beautiful
I don’t see it with your cold hazel eyes
I don’t dissect it into painful little bits
Trying to discern cause of death
As we’re lying entwined on a cold autopsy table
Before our heart beats have even had the chance to stop racing
I don’t believe it’s avoiding failure if we never try
I never have
You read our history like a eulogy
Citing each fight as a mortal wound
Recounting the tales
Over a mahogany coffin
Holding onto your love
Was like listening to a coroner’s report
Each “I love you” was a doctor, calling it
Was a DNR order
You are ready to dress in black
And call in a headstone engraving
With past tense dates
To bury everything
And just call it a mistake you had to make
But I am not an obituary

i stare at my half-clothed body in the mirror,
comparing to your red-filtered half-skinned silhouette
in the photograph you sent me ever so faultlessly:
brutalist and surreal, in sharp monochrome definition,
with an expression as cold and unfeeling as concrete...

all bright eyes, wry grins,
and a corrugated abdomen:
yet your arms conceal
your chest and navel,
betraying a baser shame

you need not hide from me,
my laurel-crowned achilles:
in these eyes, you will
forever be god incarnate

emulation comes natural
(i could only ever behold
beauty by plagiarizing it):
so i shave.

not just my face...no, i take the razor
and drag it into the heath of my underarms,
across my chest, the insides of my thighs,
tracing my collarbone and (waist | waste)

i shave till my skin is raw, blotchy red;
till hair no longer bristles against
the strokes of my jaundiced fingers

i want to tear off patroclus
like the ill-fitting bandage he is:
his shame is my own, seborrheic and crawling
(learn to treat the source, not the symptoms;
cull those parasites from their deep-set roots)

god, would you grant me your favor...
if i was youthful as ganymede?
call upon me in your times of need...
if i was faithful as hephaestion?
give me all i have ever longed for...
if i was as narcissus, that conceited beauty,
who was no more egotistical than he was honest?

i clutch the rolls of subcutaneous fat in the shower,
cranking the faucet in hopes of
rendering it out with the heat
like some ****** up confit;
such is the price of my babylon

bloated, the cystic acne on my back
bleeding into my bedsheets,
i realize it is moments like these,
when my woolen throat abrades at my voice
and i want to retch with each inhale;
when torpid tide pools of saliva
lap against my cheeks
and nausea consumes me:

i am at the mercy of my body and its afflictions—
i can only take these sensations, seen and unseen,
silently as they come, moment by moment,
patiently enduring this migraine of the heart.

the only thing that gives me joy
is seeing the water roll down
my body in beautiful thin sheets,
unobstructed by thick forests of hair

a diagnosis would only warrant my weakness,
justify the existence of the black villous mass
beyond mortal comprehension within me—
within us, wretched god—

i resignedly accept that your messages
will find their way to me only in the dark hours;
i know this even as i text you on the bus ride home,
because you never had time for me but i find myself
constantly making time for you,
begging for someone to care the way i do...

oh but there are still debts to be exacted,
reparations to be paid, my bright-eyed misgiver
(and you won't want to be around
when i collect on them)

when you gaze upon my withered husk
on the hospital bed,
permit me my resplendent self-destruction
silence those morphine alarms
trace the morse code scars on my arms
read and heed their silent plea:
do not resuscitate.

This is an instruction of a dying man. He signs a form that prohibits the doctor from going to extreme lengths to keep him alive. This is indirectly consented suicide. This is the act of a man who no longer wants to live. This, is the instruction of a dying man.

So, Death is knocking at the door and I have decided to not let Deaths’ knock go unanswered. I’ve lived all the life I was meant to and now my body has run its course because it wasn’t meant to get me passed this point - I am about to die.

Family and friends wrapped closely around me like the love they have for me and I’ve left them no control over my life. I’ve made a decision I don’t have to live with - but they do.

If it’s my time, and I’ve done all I can in this life, do not resuscitate me. Do not bring me back to a life where my purpose is fulfilled, and my destiny has been made manifest. Don’t bring me back to be a dormant body watching the fruits of my work! Do Not Resuscitate me

No one knows their time. The painful truth is, when the time comes, that’s hardly the wrong time. If we had a say on when to go, I have a feeling we’d still wipe ourselves out early. We’re already afraid to live, what more if we had the choice. If we had the choice, that would render the works of Marvel irrelevant! Thanos wouldn’t be so bitter about life, but the rest of us would.

We would end our conversations with “Good nights” and tell them to “sleep tight” and they’d take us literal. It would be a good night for them to sleep tight enough to fit inside a coffin. Death would be proud to not have to scour the earth preying on life.

Do Not Resuscitate me
If time allows, and the Heavens agree, I will embark on my last journey with the last few breathes I have. I will boldly walk into the light, and I’d be anxious to see what’s on the other side. I wouldn’t look back.

To be continued..

"One for the pain,
two to make it go away."
He says as he washes
his benzos down
with whiskey.

He doesn't want to
wake up the next day,
'cause ever since twenty-seven
life's gone downhill.

A tall Japanese woman
stands beside him,
and takes the plunge, too.
Follows it with whiskey.
Always follow with whiskey.

Her marriage is
falling apart,
and ever since twenty-seven
life's gone downhill.

He tried to leave, once,
with a ****** overdose:
"That **** ***** of
a girlfriend had
to save my life."

He tattooed DNR on
both wrists
because of that *****.

He tugs on the
Japanese gal's skirt;
even looming suicide
doesn't slake his piggish lust.

She slaps his hand
and stands on the
other side of the
room, arms crossed.

"Ya know,
standing like that
makes yer ****
look bigger."

She walks into the
kitchen and drinks
more whiskey;
that *******'s the reason
for her life's steady decline.

They drive, fully hammered,
to a beach blanketed with fog.

They build, fully hammered,
a bonfire; gotta burn it all!

They sit, fully hammered,
waiting for sleep to hit;
that final slip into oblivion
with a heavy sinking lull.

He can't speak without a slur;
she can't see without a blur.

He can't stand without a wobble;
she can't stand without a topple.

His eyelids grow heavy;
his breath starts to slow.
Her breath isn't steady;
her lungs hardly grow.

Good-night, old friends.
Good-bye.

I am the monster, that I hate,
I am the demon, standing at the gate,
Drowning in sadness and depression,
Anxiety crashing the party with desperation,
And i can't, I can't anymore,
Move my feet one step more forward,
It hurts to live, it hurts to breathe,
It's a pain to exist, to even believe,
That things can get better,
Because I've been waiting for that miracle,
Since I was in the 4th grade and I wanted to die,
Yeah, not even 10 years old and I just knew that I,
Was destined for death at an early grave,
So let me go, let me be, do not resuscitate,

Let me suffocate and choke on my own sorrow,
Let me sink below the surface and not be here tomorrow,
Because living is a ******* chore at this point,
And I find no joy, no love, no light,

No one should live like this,
In their own eternal darkness,
Scrambling to survive, forced to live,
And I'm just so ******* tired,
From having to pretend that I'm okay,
That I will be here every single day,
Because I hate myself,
I carry around guilt,
And it weighs me down like a whole other person,
Just constantly strangling me while climbing on my back,
Telling me you aren't worth another minute,
Of living on this planet,
And I believe it, and it feels like ****,
So let me go, let me be, do not resuscitate,

Let me suffocate and choke on my own sorrow,
Let me sink below the surface and not be here tomorrow,
Because living is a ******* chore at this point,
And I find no joy, no love, no light,

There are only two significant places,
where hellos and goodbyes ought to play their roles.

It's where lovers depart from each other,
It's where a decorated soldier from war is welcomed,
It's where a foreign student on visa says goodbye to a country she beloved,
It's where the gypsy soul says hello to an unknown part
of the world.

It's where the comatose patient has awoken,
It's where the old is removed to make way for the new,
It's where babies are brought to the world with a cry of a new life,
It's where miracles happen once in a while,
It's where a heart transplant says hello to a whole new host,
It's where the DNR is signed.

there will be time in your life
when nothing seems to work
when all the pain you can muster up in your wrists
will not be nearly enough to shoot endorphins through your veins

when you don’t know if the choking feeling in your throat
is because of the pills you downed in a heartbeat
or the recurring thought of “i’ll never be good enough”
of “maybe i should just **** myself”

when the sadness has drilled too big of a hole in your chest
that your nerves can’t seem to send your brain signals
that pain has flooded your entire system
shutting down not only your organs
but also your ability to move
to speak
to think

when your highs seem like mountains to climb
and your lows just another step forward
to fall into the neverending trance
of the sensation upon reaching the bottom

you just want everything to stop
you want your atriovencular valve to cease its motion
your aortic valve never to open again
to never close again
there will be no more isovolumic contraction nor relaxation
the beat at which your heart dances to keep you alive

you want it all to stop
maybe it will keep you from life’s ups and downs
you want a flat line
no rising action
no falling action
you want nothing
you want to be nothing
or you just want to be happy

but if there are no ups, no downs
no contactions
no relaxations
when your heart has flatlined
that means you’re dead
and no amount of epinephrine will bring you back

just take a shock to the system
please, whatever you do
don’t sign for a DNR
“do not resuscitate”
take a shock to the system
to remind you that being around
is actually pretty worth it
that pain
that suffering
they give beauty to life
they are the beauty of life
that you’re the beauty of someone else’s

To keep the patient comfortable was all now I could do.
The diagnosis was terminal and he obviously knew.
I was with him through his surgery that was thelast gasp chance,
and now he looked death in the face with an unflinching glance.

He said “Dear, if you’ll humor me and if there’s any chance,
There are three things on my bucket list before I leave this dance.”
“I’m craving one last cigarette; perhaps a glass of wine;.
“and, If you can arrange it, to see the Sun a final time.”

On the top floor of this hospital there’s an open balcony.
I grubbed a cigarette for him out of sympathy.
I could not get a cabernet; he’d settle for Chablis.
I got him on a gurney and called for an orderly.

That afternoon was splendid and Fall was in the air.
The Sun was setting in the West as he watched it from his chair.
The patient puffed his Marlboro and blew smoke rings for me
He didn’t give me too much grief for my choice of Chablis.

“They say the Lord on Calvary was thirsty for a drink,
A sponge soaking in vinegar they offered Him, I think.”
“So who am I to criticize my nurse’s choice of wine;
Its chilled and it is drinkable so it will serve me fine.”

By evening he was comatose; his pulse was weak and fast
His children said there last goodbyes; grateful for the chance.
They’d arranged it with the Doctors; DNR was on his slip.
I sat and held the old man’s hand as the good god, Morphine, dripped.

Stemming from an old familiar place
I plead insanity but not my case,
with red tinted sunglasses covering my face,
failing at trying to hide my shame.
With an abundance of up but lacking down
I’ve searched every street within this town,
I’ll rediscover peace but forget my own name.
I really need it, I’ve got to treat it
again.

No one could survive this,
I’ve got no touch like Midas,
and those same demons are at my door,
the one’s who let themselves in before.
No one could survive this,
I’ve got no will to fight it.
Why waste the strength holding it at bay,
when I can mimic that strength another day, even for show.

Step into character and out of skin,
showcase on the nose but I can’t seem to win.
I have no interest in their flashy jackpot prize,
It’s lacking clear blue skies and her warm eyes,
but I’ll shake hands and force another empty grin.
I really need it, but it’s not greed
it’s pretend.

No one could survive this,
blatant weakness but I hide it,
I’m a lone black sheep among the cattle,
even Peter Pan despised his shadow.
No one could survive this,
a DNR with a revive list,
and no one wants to leave but they never stay,
there’s no direction but they continue on their way, where do they go?

Do you really need this,
I’m willing to bleed for bliss
and transcend.
Do you really need this,
how often will you read this
till you wend?
Do you really need this,
or do you just want to believe this
will end?

The lake in my town is
Beautiful
Calming
Crisp and blue

But only if I look from a certain distance.
Until I break the smooth, glass surface and dive down
Run, jump off the dock and splash
I've  shattered the calm

I'm in the water
It's surrounding me
Cooling me down
Wrapping me up
Bringing me pleasure by its simple existence

Still underwater, I open my eyes
This is not what it seemed
This isn't how it should be
It's dark
Swirling
I can't see anything
It's all green, full of foreign things

I put my feet down
And they sink into mud
How can this be?
How can something so shining and clear be so...
So different than it seems?

It's *****
Through no fault of its own
Full of sticks and silt and plants
All these, these things invaded the lake
Cluttered it up
Took it over

It was powerless to resist
It couldn't
Do
Anything
A victim of circumstance
A battered man in the side of the highway with no Good Samaritan to come to the rescue

For years
It just is
Crashing, pulling, ebbing, flowing
Hiding
Concealing the mess it really is
Just a few feet down

Don't be sad for Silver Lake
All hope is not lost
It doesn't have to be this way forever
The DNR is going to dredge it

It will take time
But eventually
The lake will be clean
No mud
No tree branches
No blue-green algae
It will be free of all the stifling pressure
Of everything it's been holding in for so long

Then,
It will be just how it looks to me now
Beautiful
Precious
Lovely
Pure
Bright
Calm

Free.

do not read
my poems
if you will not
read me.

i jumped
from a bridge
and woke up
in the hospital.
apparently
the "DNR"
i wrote
in marker
on my chest
had washed away.
or maybe
they had washed
it away.
i left a note
and it said
"do not read"
as if
anyone
could ever
resist such
an invitation.
and all i wrote
inside was:
"what did
i tell you?"

["i love you."
that is what
*i told you.]

Beep
Beep
Beep
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

I wonder
Will this disappoints them too?

Shut the lid to my sarcophagus
Let me sink into the abyss
For this world is one I won't miss

There's this thing about the dead.
When your love one is gone,
When someone you love has passed away,
The DNR signed,
Plugs were taken out,
He layed Stiff,
Buried underground,
Deep beneath dirt,
Deep beneath earth,
You try to remember those moments with him,
Your first date,
Your first kiss on the elevator,
Flashbacks come and go,
And you smell his sweater that he likes,
You're missing him so bad,
Sometimes you cry out his name
when you're asleep,
The side of the bed is wearing unevenly,
Sometimes you feel his presence,
You know you'll survive this,
but, sometimes you just wish that he'll always be there,
to hold your hands,
when you're scared to face the world alone.
It's been a year,
and I'm still mesmerize when I look at you,
how you've move forward,
how you've move on,
so courageously,
so fearlessly,
so swiftly.
I know you're still learning how
to let go,
I can see it in your eyes.
Hang in there, dear heart.

In the moments before death my brain had flooded with DMT  
And I could see in my mind’s eye all of the best that had been between us.
From somewhere above my body I silently screamed that the DNR was a mistake
I was comforted then in knowing that you would soon follow me into the dark
-a willing victim of our shared cancer.
I had seen your hospice nurses and heard your death rattles for years.
Even still I longed so much for you to grab the paddles and force me back
but we had agreed not to resuscitate;
so paralyzed I watched my life leave.

It was first with a whimper and then with sobs
that I grasped wildly around the small pitch box
in search of you who had promised to die with me.
I found instead more darkness, the smell of dirt
and that not even the ghost of you had come to lay.

I can sometimes hear you eulogize my goodness from above
when you come to pick the flowers I’m growing with what is left of me.
I won’t reach for you anymore as I did last night.
I will lie very still.
Without a whimper.

Always lurking in the shadows where fear and loathing grows,
Cancer never has a face until it takes someone you know.
You see good days and bad days, from now until the end,
When  Cancer makes a shadow of a loved one or a friend.
Platelets are important, and anemia threatens too,
as Oncologists and their ilk are radiating you.
Chemotherapy and surgery; the physicians cut and burn,
The cost of all these treatments? - Every penny that you’ve earned.
If lucky, she will make it through and be called a survivor.
If unlucky, there’s a DNR and they will not revive her.