I’m thinking about the doctor's hands shaking as she
                                               struggles to intubate a cat.  
I’m thinking about the technician's hands squeezing the cat’s rib cage,
pulsing life with a delicate force; she is much more gentle than
                                                      practition­ers are with humans—
hard and quick down with the palms; the ribs snapping,
                                                                ­     the sternum sore.  

Some time ago an 80-year-old woman on my unit was
opened up bedside for a cardiac procedure during a code.  
After a week in ICU, she came back to us on the unit, was up and
walking and talking, and was discharged home within another week.

Meanwhile, the 60-year-old man was dead in the morgue
       after a 45-minute code failed to resuscitate him.  

The flip of the coin.  The thin line.  The blessing or the curse.  
The absolute darkness of a body bag.  The cold chill of absolute zero.  
The fresco painted on the catacomb walls could either depict the
light of the sun or the multicolored lights that the
brain shoots off minutes before death.  
                                                        ­               The eleventh hour,
                                                                ­  isn’t that what it’s called?  

We don’t want to talk about body care, death care.  
We have to, but it won’t register.  
                                                     ­       After a loss, after a trauma,
                                                                ­   we are on autopilot.  
I think of my mother,
                                        six feet beneath frozen soil in
                                      a pink padded casket and think:
                                                                ­                             I don’t want that.
I think of the prearranged plots my grandparents picked out
next to her in an above ground crypt and think:
                                                          ­                                   I don’t want that.
Bacteria still causes decay after the embalming process.  
Putrefied flesh.  Bones visible.  Muscles eaten.  Tissues disintegrated.  
We don’t talk about it.  

We try to think the opposite.  The positive vs the negative.  
(But that’s not always possible or healthy.)

I’m thinking about hands inserting IVs, hands taking
blood pressures, hands documenting the code notes
on a clipboard in the back of the room.  
I couldn’t do these things.
                                                 My hands tend to break what they touch.  
The glass bowl in the pet store.  
                               The clay project in art class.  
                                                        ­    The succulents, the basil, the orchid.
I’m good at things I don’t have to think about:
good at the autopilot, good at the autonomic,
                                                                                    good at trauma.

It's become obvious you are not coming back
The thought of you and her together hits me like a smack
The blood that runs rampant through my veins suddenly starts to freeze
My heart stops pumping as I drop straight to my knees
It shatters to pieces and the shrapnel fills my chest
Impaling my lungs
Making my breathing congest
Silence has no business settling inside my ears
But the fact that it does confirms my worst fears
There is not a word I could say to possibly change your mind
Without hesitation you effortlessly leave me behind
If you're not in love anymore why couldn't you let me know?
I gave you many opportunities to let me go
Yet you are such a coward you hid how you feel
Led me to believe your emotions were still real
Then you vanished without courtesy of a text or call
I guess the truth is I meant nothing to you at all

Love's vine stems from the heart;
it is ivy creeping through iron gates.
Wanders free through stony soil,
rushing stream, and bank.
It can loiter in the garden,
and fall victim to the spring rain.
But do not despair, my dear,
for its passion is like a flame:
Forever burning in its tendrils,
its coiled roots and leaves;
survives environs menace,
summer's blaze, and winter's freeze.

When I close my book,
do the characters get trapped
in time or pages?

Spring has gone
Summer has come
My heart is still in winter
The freezing wind made me chill,
and froze the memory
so i can search for

Time stopped in this winter
Everyone repeated same scene every day
Everything become static
like pictures in google image
so  i can search for

My steps are slower
but my heart is kept searching
starting from this freezing winter
will go on and on.

walking down cold streets
with colder faces

i am unnerved
as my own cold face begins
to crack and fall apart

i am not surprised
when i shatter and collapse
their cold faces turn colder

i am pleasantly shocked
as their frost freezes me to the ground
and i become the soles of their feet