You can lead a horse to water
But you cannot make him drink.
You can push him in the pool
Or put his head into the sink,
But if the horse's an ornery *******
And he will not reason nor think,
You can lead a horse to water
But you cannot make him drink.

She tells me, “You should have five kids with your face, you’re beautiful,” after she asks how many kids I want and I tell her I think I’m stopping at the one I have. I laugh, because I’m not beautiful.
But I feel seen.

She always calls me beautiful, and I know it’s not my looks. It’s my compassion, my bedside manner. I ask about her day and sometimes I tell her about mine.
She says they don’t talk to her like I do—and that makes me sad.

She’ll tell me about her granddaughter while I prep my supplies, and I’ll remind her to go easy on the girl while I flush her tube.
Her daughter pops in. She knows me by name, wears a look of relief because I’ve already done oral care and tucked her in for the night.
While I clean up, her daughter tells me about her week.
They both say they wish I worked through the week.

I’d like to stay longer, but I’ve got two more rooms.
So I say my goodnights and push my cart along.

She’s on hospice. I know how this goes. I’ve been through this before.
But when she goes, I will miss her.
I’ll hope she finally gets that Bud Light she’s been asking for when she crosses over.
And I’ll think of her every time I prep that room for a new patient.

The Weight I Carry (And What It Costs)

The past is not behind me—
It walks beside me still.
It speaks in quiet moments
And bends me to its will.

It lingers in the sterile light,
It echoes in the hum
Of monitors and whispered prayers
When hope is all but gone.

The present isn’t softer—
It pulses through the pain
Of patients breaking in my hands,
Of lives I can’t sustain.

But I know how to sit with fear,
I’ve breathed through it for years.
I’ve felt the dark press on my chest
And fought back drowning tears.

PTSD has marked my soul,
But made me sharp and kind.
I see the wounds behind the words
That others never find.

In scrubs, I’m strong, I speak with calm,
I know just what to do.
At work, I give what’s left of me
To help someone pull through.

But when I cross the threshold home,
The weight becomes too loud.
The walls expect a gentler me
Than what I’m still allowed.

The stress I never fully name,
It follows me inside.
And suddenly, the smallest things
Feel like a wave, a tide.

I’m not as soft, I’m not as still,
I shut down when you speak.
I’ve run dry from giving all day—
There’s nothing left to leak.

And though I love with all I am,
Some nights, I disappear.
Not into war zones far away,
But right beside you here.

So if I seem a world away,
Or cold when I come home—
Know it’s not you I push against,
Just the silence I’ve outgrown.

The past still lives inside my bones,
The present takes its toll.
But loving you and healing too—
It’s both my wound and goal.

And all I ask is that you see
The fight behind the face.
I’m learning how to carry less,
And come back to this place.

So hold me when the light runs low,
Remind me love is near—
That even when I give too much,
There’s still room to be here.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

I’m maddened at how
one night of lost sleep
launches you
into every shelf
of glass achievements
until there’s nothing
of your lifetime work.

But the way
you kaleidoscope
stained glass cathedrals,
bright chapels and shrines
from the crystal heap
will always
weaken my knees and
be magic to me.

The aroma of jasmine
announces my radiant
sorcery of washing hair
after the seven days since.

Touch my newly softened skin
as I let my towel slip.
Behold my breath so minty
Kiss my newly moistened lips

I can make no promises
on when I’ll do this again.
Thank you for holding me still
until we get back to then

Slop
in the trough.
Poison cough.
Shattered femur.
No dreamer.
In a world of crime
It is
Time