Room 20: Emergency Room

She is lying there,
Barely breathing
With a heart barely beating enough
To keep her alive.
All the tubes, wires, and prayers
Are fueling her soul to hold on.
"Please, don't leave us."
And then,
The sound they've all been dreading.
The endless beeping echo of death
Resounding in a room full of
Regret, anger, and relief.
"She's in a better place now."

Room 22: Stroke

He keeps on saying
He feels better
Ready to go home
100%!
All the while,
His wife's patience is dwindling.
"I'm all he's got now.
I can't leave him."
They're 70 years old,
Married for 45.
45 years and a ruptured artery
A plaque on his heart
And a boxful of God-knows-what drugs
She still holds his hand
Even when her own heart
Is heavy.

Room 24: Cancer

Maria went through three cycles in past the months
Three excruciating cycles of chemotherapy
They tell you the anti-emetics will reduce the side effects.
When you're 65-years old
And all alone,
And cancer is swimming in your veins,
What else do you hold on to?
These are the side effects:
You lie awake at night
Wishing you lived a better life
Wishing you didn't shut everyone out
You should've married
You should've spent more time living
Instead of merely surviving
"You're a survivor."
But what good is surviving when pain comes with it--
The type of pain
No medication
Can take away?

Room 25: Beauty

I am a mother of two.
A boy and girl.
Beautiful
Is what they call me.
I'm looking at my daughter,
And..
And if only I accepted her,
For what she was
For what she wasn't
Then we wouldn't be here.
Tragic
Defiled.
I took her to the Dermatologist
To fix what wasn't broken
She injected her with chemicals
That would heal her
But a horrible allergic reaction ensued.
I should've seen how
Beautiful my baby was.

Room 26: Prostate

Everybody loves him.
Even all his 20 kids
Whose mothers he can barely memorize.
I honestly don't know how many wives he has.
I don't even know how many
He has actually married.
All I know is this:
I am his current wife.
At 71,
His body doesn't work right
anymore.
At 31,
I have needs
He could no longer meet.
But I love him.

Room 27: Not For Admission**

I am dark & desolate
I am hungry
For souls that need shelter
And tears that need hiding
I've seen enough deaths to even care how I'd look.
My paint is almost drying up,
My walls are almost ready
I can't wait for the next story.

If love is an art-form,
   I beg you,
      do not choose me.
Do not paint,
   with fingertips tracing my skin,
The colour of your love,
   with the slashes of your paintbrush upon my flesh,
In a torrent of red velvet,
   surging from your screaming veins.
If I lie there in wait, draped over cotton bedsheets,
   I beg you
      do not make me your canvas.
      Do not make me your art
and leave me
                       hanged
                                     for all the world to see
   while you marvel at the beauty
you created.

                                                            *-j.s.

beware when you fall in love
with an artist
be it a painter, a singer, or poet

for the artist will
paint you
with strokes and hues
in shapes of every kind

sing about you
with heartbreak lyrics
and feelings which rhyme

write about you
with the simplest words
and a secret message she wants to say

beware of the artist,
and her love
one wrong move
and you're an artwork in her display

I need you
to write to me,
to hide little poems for me.

I need you
to paint for me,
to create little portraits for me.

I need you
to bake for me,
to make little cupcakes for me.

I need you
to create for me,
to give me little droplets of you.

I need you to be my artist.

I feel like I'm turning into a grey can of paint.
Y'see, pretty much everything is either black or white to me.
But for a long time, I've been noticing that I'm more stuck in this grey parabole in the middle. I'm always saying things like, "I do know, but I don't know" and, "I want it but I really don't want it". It's all very confusing and my ability to make decisions is diminishing each day I go on like this...
It's making everything seem more and more impossible...
Most days, I'm mixing slightly more with the black than the white (and vice versa). These days aren't so bad- if you've been this state for as long as I have.
Then there's the days when I am the most perfectly balanced grey you could ever lay your eyes upon; there's almost beauty in my misfortune and depleting mental stability. Days like those- a day like this...
A day like this can demolish your spirit in milliseconds. A day like this can stop you from seeing the most vibrant autumn leaves strewn across the earth, as your eyes have now turned to grey. A day like this can let your demons burst out from hiding in the cavities of your mind and start gnawing at things they shouldn't. A day like this makes you not care that all of this is happening to you, just as long as you're still as dull as your cigarette's smoke.

My freckle flecked love
      stirs the speckled paintbrush soft, dousing it's hairs so that,
    as I pull it back,
all the bristles bend
     seamlessly, and when I let go
they ping forwards,
      smattering
a scattering of stars,
         onto snowy canvas.