I don’t know how to sooth the tears that I didn’t see coming.

When you know there’s a cancer growing
Like a microscopic wave
Rushing down vessel streets
Breaking down tissue windows and ***** doors,
Then you know that the man you’ve been building up will crumble.

When her memory is going
Like so many gusts of wind
Through a filing room
Full of names and faces
People and places
Blowing the carefully organized papers
Out tangled neurofiber doors
You know it’ll only be a matter of time till she blows away too.

But when a woman’s healthy heart
Gets heavy,
When young, smooth hands
Grow unsteady,
When the one who made it through
May have left something behind,
My pause is not just for effect.

Maybe we think that blessed people
Can’t also be scarred.
That normal CT scans
Can’t hide twisted insides.
So when the problem patients
Are the ones with solved problems,
Our empathy seems in short supply.

But the woman with no pain
May still not want to leave.
And there may be scarier things at home than an empty inhaler.
We’ve written off patients
With an insulin pen.
Sent home with a prescription
For return to life as usual.
We’re caught off guard
And instinctively build new walls
Because we aren’t prepared
For what we don’t think is there.