Anesthesiologist places mask on patient,
coaching easier breaths,
stillness.
Finished-
he leaves, leaves
leaves, leaves.

Surgeon enters with shiny tray of metal tools,
Patient’s rib cage rattles,
rapid breathing, sporadic monitor
panic breaks hospital windows
shattered,
everything is shattered.

Patient cries of days lived in uncertainty,
mutters about metaphorical agony.
Surgeon is insecure in performing procedure—
due to patient’s complaints,
“Pain is a parasite inside my ears, laying eggs inside the brain, where maggots squirm through my eye making a home in the skull.”
Patient feels no pain,
but screams of
impalement by life - -

God, what would your diagnosis be?
God claims, “the heart fights for purpose.”
Patient believes there isn’t one.
A suggestion;
reason with patient to make payment or rental of new
blood circulation, chambers, ventricles, valves, atriums.

Patient takes scalpel,
opening own chest
with hand inside
Patient is unable to find source of hurting
but reports numbness.

current status,
human.

—V.H.