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Anais Vionet Feb 2023
let
Let politicians claim virtue,
and abandon honest men.

Let the poor inherit promises,
and be comfortable servants.

Let the famous enjoy advantage,
and carry no favors in heaven.

Let physicians prescribe hope,
and a worthy price be paid.

Let education forge solutions,
and notorious liars lose favor.

Let simple humanity be rewarded,
and tyranny reap the sorrow of death.
Adam Schmitt Dec 2022
I almost died the other day
And I came back to this place just to say
That you never know when it all can get taken Away
All your life's lessons suddenly play
like a highschool production through your mind's electric grey clay,
a mind managing to keep itself oxygenated enough to operate even as consciousness fades
A body lying there, blue as a mid summer's day, gasping
For breath, and for a chance to stay
Alive.

I woke up, having almost died the other day,
To a room full of strange faces, whose eyes all aimed my way.
A room full of strangers,
My vision regaining clarity,
I see equipment of many types, lying around a well decorated living room, it seemed out of place,
devices dreamed up by engineers a few hundred miles away,
At an elite institution, of mechanical engineering and science, engineering devices that now lay about my horrified friend's living room,
Then the puzzle regained its shape, and I was graced with the understanding that it was all going to be okay,
this time, anyway.

the first responders,
My saviours.
Real heroes,
Who wear no capes,
Nor spandex,
But who know their job well,
And do it without delay,
And these people who saved my life today
Are out of my life now forever, and onto saving another fragile life, on some other street,
On some other day.

I saw people in blues, reds, and greys, yellows and oranges, and then the light of the day.
The light of the day on which I did not die,
But I could have, had it been another time,
Another place.

My stretcher was bright yellow, by the way...

I almost died the other day, and its implacable oncoming rush scared me.
The fear of not having lived a worthy life, an unobserved life,
Of dying too soon, with things left to do
Of leaving people behind,
Of wrongs left to right
Of lying here blue
On my dear friend's plush carpet,
And her child witnessing it as he comes home from school. Innocent as day, then scarred for life.

Luckily I have a few friends and modern miracles on my side.

I almost died the other day, and I came back here, having missed all the poetry, that makes life worth living, day after day.
Beyond the biorhythms we must feed
In order to stay
Alive.

   Peace.
         Love.
Breath.
             Focus.

                     A good enough mantra,
                     Wouldn't you say?

I almost died the other day,
But I didn't. I breathe
in with gratitude,
And I exhale with relief,
that I still got the knack
for it.
Sometimes the poems are real. I had a severe anaphylactic reaction to an allergen, but I lived thanks to the support systems available to me. Everyone deserves access to quality healthcare. EVERYONE.
Mystic Ink Plus Jul 2022
Writing for me isn't easy
Unwriting, much harder
So I do
Until I get enough

With all blissful vibes
Symphony of grace
Overwhelm spirit
Grounding reality
And a magic of its own

Out of sight
Let me take you on a journey
Reconnecting all the senses
Returning back to sanity
Curiosity
Wonder
Imagination
And spontaneity
Apprehending the whole
And meet you in the another realm
Healing doesn't always start with pills, syrup, sachets. Sometimes it starts by deep conversation with someone. Sometimes it starts with interaction with earthy matters, get going in the direction of wind. Travelling, music and being close to nature. To heal faster, the sufferer needs to behave like the fluid, free to flow and form.
Bryan Nov 2021
Helping
everyone
and
letting
them
heal
costs
are
rising
exponentially.
I love acrostics. I should do more of these.
Karambitties Mar 2021
Waiting for a drop to trickle down while these ***** on top drown.
The 1% ****** up the whole ratio
got people breaking their backs
like auto-*******.
Just to make ends meet.  
Like Ricky, he was working towards that American dream but
behind the scenes life was
coming apart at the seams
all because of a fault of his genes.
Uh-oh
Couldnt afford insurance,
and there all his savings go.
Spending eighty thousand dollars on pill that MIGHT save his life.
But wait, what about
dear Ricky's wife?
She was right there by his side
Watch him rot for months
'till the day he died
now she's empty inside.
Forced to swim in high tide
with no buddy.
She can't cope, even with that hollow feeling she can't float
Starts sinking deeper in the drink.
Thrashing in the dark
with lungs burning
there's no room to breath.
Foreclosure notice on the door
Say her and the kids need to leave.
Back to the grind with
no time to grieve.
Just another cog ground out
by the American machine.
So ******* much for the
American dream.
Just the ravings of a weak minded, socialist, anarcho-******, long hair, looking for a hand out like every other ***.
Taylor St Onge Nov 2020
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.
notice that the fawn response isn't titled here
Carlo C Gomez Jul 2020
thy kingdom come
thy will take place
selling health at a premium
to the human race
forgive us our debts
from thy mighty hand
or at least allow us
an installment plan
give us our daily meds
but deliver us from evil
by providing generic instead
Rishawn May 2020
Uncertainty is terrifying
Indefinite is paralyzing
Isolation is immobilizing

We take these terms in stride
as we know of the greater struggle
yet the fear of fear itself is not a source of pride

Feel the stress, endure the hardship
and remember there is a family here
that will be there for kinship

What is coming is unknown
what has happened is not overblown
How we move forward will make a noise that resounds

Lets band together and rise
Ensure we mitigate a demise
Keep away and safe
but not alone
not
without good faith
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