In the past five years, you haven’t
stepped foot into a hospital. Unlike your best friend,
whose father had cancer, and unlike your grandmother,
who slipped and fell and broke her hip and
you were vacationing in Ecuador when all of this was happening,
unable to escape from the tropical rainforests to visit
the sick and dying.

Your friends tell you that you’re lucky,
that they’ve been to hospitals twelve times since their birth,
but at this point, anything would be more exciting than
coming home and falling asleep. Even your favorite TV show
can’t keep you awake anymore, and instead of being in surgery
or giving birth,
you curve your spine into a C shape while trying to finish homework
that will never truly be done.

But if you really cared about any of this, maybe you
would drive to the hospital, take a stroll down the maternity ward,
though suddenly you’d remember
that you don’t know how to drive
and maybe you’ll never get out of this place,
maybe this is all there will ever be.