Blank white walls
Do these people even care at all?
I lay here in this hospital bed
With so many thoughts unsaid
Needles shoved in my arm
How do you feel safe when all you feel is harm?
I know these people have to care
But all I see is there blank stare
I know they don't understand
All they know is second hand
I lay here with a lingering fear
But I don't shed one single tear
I know soon I will go
But for now I will not let the pain show

I spent my youth in a third row seat
You and me way back low down
Give me a smooch, no one is looking
Or even if they are

Yellow lights from the highway passing
Slide over you in a v neck t shirt
Me in jeans way too tight
Friday nights were always this

But not tonight

Dinners together turned to an all-liquid diet
We don't share a seat
We share a hospital bed

They'll tear you apart
And still you won't care.
You'll do as you're told
In that thing you wear.

You won't ever see
Them when they do.
It's too much to look
And know that it's you.

So just close your eyes
This won't hurt a bit.
Before you count ten
They'll be through with it.

Touch me like you need me
Like you needed me that night
You needed something that couldn't be lent
that couldn't be returned

Feel my hand
Merged with yours
sweaty and lustful
entwined with my fingers
as you claim me as yours

Grab my wrist with your razor fingers
empty my soul onto a ***** bathroom floor
and cling to it all the way to the hospital
On the ambulance ride
I see my mother and my father behind me
Two faded forms through the window
I sleep
I wake up hours away
from my home
from you

In my mind you are there
in my hands
in my heart
inside of me
bleeding out rapidly in a cold room
next to a girl twelve years of age
with cherry gashes up and down her arms

I know
I know that you are there
in my ****** poetry book
that I gave from stolen papers and crayons
Blood red
your favorite color
all over printer paper with hearts and cursive.

She came to me
In a morphine haze,
All mousy hair
And summer dress,
The fresh smell of air,
Her smile radiating out,
Magnetic eyes
Drawing me in.
No sinister love
Around here to be found.
I float three feet off the ground,
Hospital mattress
My monkey cloud
On which I drift.

And I drift
Into gentle vision,
Into peaceful sound.
She touches heart,
Warm hands
On ice cold block,
And she thaws me
Through this state
Of unknown fortune,
Tempts me back
Into the land of the living
Whilst leaving me,
With no uncertainty,
That when I awake
She will be gone.
She denies me the choice
Of staying here with her,
Semi-comatose
But happy, at last

Now, I have no
Recollection of her face
Though I know
She was beautiful,
I have no sense
Of her touch
Though I know
It kept me alive.
I am left with
A deep sense of love,
And that, at times,
Is enough

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2017

In the waiting room
The broken clock sits

I want to write a poem
But I don't know what to write.
I'm such a broken doll
I wish I could make this rhyme
But nothing works in my mind
Well except those two lines
Well now it's three
Oops

My Brian isnt really working right now
Oops spelling error I mean brain
That probably proves just how little my brain wants to work
I think I might be in denial.
I've probably been in denial all day.
But once I finally got there
The denial went away

Now I'm crying
I was crying in the ICU
And I'm crying now.
In the waiting room.
I want to put my words down onto this page.
I want to make this page my stage
I want to pour my emotions into this piece
But I can't seem to get it right
Seeing as this poem barely rhymes
Not that a poem ever has to rhyme.

I read her one of my poems while I talked at her.
Well I should say talked to her
But she couldn't respond.
She was trying.
I know she was trying.
But it didn't really work.
She had, I think it's called a respirator, down her throat.
So she couldnt speak a single note.

I think I'm going to go back in soon.
My dad is talking to her alone.
They say there's only a 50% chance she'll make it through the night
And everyone says they're praying
But I'm not quite sure who to pray to.
So I don't pray.
I just hope
And I believe in her
I trust that if she wants to fight and make her way back that we will.
And I hope that that's what she wants.

I feel like I never really spent any time with her now.
I feel like I barely know her.
I feel like when it comes down to it.
We don't really know each other.
When I first found out she was in the hospital,
I was getting ready for school.
I had to get to band at 7
And it was already 6:40
I needed to hurry.
So when I heard them talk about it
I wasn't sure what to say

There's been some scares before but it always turned out okay.
But now they say it's worse
Now my family is coming into town.
My family doesn't talk.
We aren't close.
We only speak if necessary
We do the least, not the most.
The fact that they are coming
Leaves me in shock

Is this the last time I'll see her?
I don't know
I have hope that she'll make it.
She keeps trying to talk
I'm sure it will all be alright I guess
But I can't help but worry.

Honestly sometimes I miss it
The friends
The food
The care
But then I remember how nice it was to walk outside
How weird it was to walk into a store by myself
How odd it was to have access to knifes
Everyone says they care
And for the most part they do
But you're the only one that has to deal with the darkness all the time
I miss the constant care
People making sure I was safe
Now I have to make sure I'm safe
And as much as I want to be alive
I want to be dead
But it's okay because struggling means I'm living and I can't loose anything by living
Dying will always be there