"ivs" poems
I have faith in medical science
But little in practice.
Straight spined doctors
Racing stopwatches against
Their appointment books.
Extolling the virtues of thousands of years of medical research
But unable to consider anyone's opinion other than their own.
Kindly, soft-voiced nurses shuffling from
Room to room
Doling out condolences and reassurances
Paired with regimens
Of drugs and IVs.
While Old Time in the ticking clock
Slows
To a dead crawl.
And the noise of heartbeats on machines
And discussions out in the hall
And loved ones distracting and pacifying patients in beds
Layer on top of one another to form a firm blanket of
Crushing. Boredom.
And the antiseptic smell does nothing to ease
The passing of time spent waiting
While the medical machine spins its wheels
To the chime of slot machines.
And the bustling rush outside a curtain
On hard white floors,
Does less than lend a sense a peace
But more of frantic urgency.
Minute long - task oriented visits
Where they know names, numbers, and insurance coverage
And they know how many steps it takes for them
To lend more of their valuable time
In that modern balance of cost and care.
Leaving me wondering,
Where did the connection go?
I wonder where peoples' trust went
And when it was replaced with,
"How much will this cost me?"
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 8:06 PM UTC
Army men
City girls
Turned nurse
Hands held over
Slowly-contaminating
Breaths
Mason jar IVs
Cleansing white
Handkerchiefs
Masks
Yellow on white
Death in the air
Blood in my mouth
Hair
Lungs-everywhere
No new people
In months.
We know what it is.
We have Typhus
And it's not going away
Until it has ****** the breath from all of us
Until we are all dead
6 feet under
The ground
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 2:31 PM UTC
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.
Nov 19, 2020
Nov 19, 2020 at 2:47 AM UTC
I.
Thoughts drip into short coffee mugs
Sweetly filling our cups with caffeinated experiences
We patiently sip
Until the steam transports us back in time
Pure memories replay, different scenes over coffee
II.
We must not weep over spilt milk
For our tears will dilute the contents of our mugs
And no amount of sugar or love
Can restore the substance to its original perfection
III.
Savor new tastes before the lazy hand
Drips synthetic liquids into our untended cups
Like IVs into coma patients
Pumping us full of fake chemicals
To soothe the human condition
Jan 3, 2012
Jan 3, 2012 at 2:30 PM UTC
I lay in my cold hospital bed, my arms stinging from the fresh IVs nurse Toby placed under my skin.
I lay in my cold hospital bed and wonder...
I wonder if I was given even one more month, how many poems and stories I would write.
How many people I would make laugh and cry.
How many times I would say "I love you."
How many times I would pray.
How many times I would close my eyes and re-accept my inevitable fate.
I lay in my cold hospital bed.
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 7:48 PM UTC
IVs and a cannulas that bind you to a bed that isn’t yours,
we are twisted-sick, playing God, if only for a moment.
Your freckled hand barred tighter around mine,
drawing my eyes to the bruises that seemingly
seep through blood-flecked gauze.
Every breath a shiver,
every shiver, a heartbeat closer
and each lungful sharper than the last.
I can feel dwindling stars so impenetrably far away,
sweltering, boundless, shaking-free as they please.
With your waning smile,
that nearly masked your anguish, we are
taking on space now, just us,
we are the atoms that make up our universe, we are
unstable and we are
collapsing and we are,
expanding and growing and we are,
bursting with what
little life
we have left.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 1:00 AM UTC
Cold sunlight fills my
room today. Coffee
from the night before
stains the corners of
my mouth and I
remember to fold the
laundry. I am not
missed when I touch
the same stained
white linen shirt
for an hour. But
someone said they
thought they heard
me crying from the
upstairs window.
Its lunchtime, and all I
have to eat are
complaints about what
someone else did.
I feel as though I
should pass the sugar,
but that may cause alarm.
I only touch what
I am told. I only touch
what I can control. I
think about eating the
dish soap as I show
you the contents
of my stomach
and see the surprise
on your face.
I think its
evening now.
I lose track of
everything now and then.
So forgive me when I say
I don't remember
your name, and which
room of the house
you stay in.
Quit yelling at me
when I'm face down
in the baby's bath
water.
Please quit assaulting
me with IVs
every time we
take unexpected trips
to the ER.
I hate how cold hospitals
feel. They make my
nose runny.
And that doctor needs
to stop telling me
that I should go
away for awhile.
What does he mean anyway?
I'm watched for
several days after.
I think they like
the way I do
the laundry now.
I cleaned out my
drawer and I
fell in love
again with my
station in life.
Its evening again,
and I can't remember
why I was crying
at all.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 10:16 AM UTC
I woke up this morning,
absent of thought and feeling,
no dreams to reflect upon,
dreary walls closing in,
******* out the moisture from my skin.
I woke up this morning,
to realize that what we had has died,
it slipped from my fingers like sand,
now it's a memory, like the hour glass I hold in my hand.
You left with no possessions behind,
flooding my room with accusations,
and broken shards of glass,
from all the mirrors and windows I smashed,
while I begged you to stay.
Rain kept pouring since the day you left,
for days, and days I couldn't speak,
all the life had been ****** out of me.
So with two hands I built a ship,
that I would float on while I got lost in bottles of ***
and whiskey.
No sirens called, nor did an octopus come to greet me,
it was silent, and cold
in the end of september,
while I watched the world change around me.
I woke up this morning,
to find that my life has been made of nothing.
I made no accomplishments, no grand feats,
I've kept myself stuck in a time loop,
even though the faces are never the same,
in some way they are, and it exhausts me.
To know that what used to be beautiful is gone,
because the poison started dripping.
It came first in the arguments,
later through the IVs into your blood stream,
I felt nothing and everything at the same time,
to realize I meant nothing, it wasn't such a shock,
I never expected differently.
So on this ship I sail,
while knowing everyone to be shallow.
When the one composed of water ascended to the top,
I'm not quite sure what he thought,
but golden tridents, and poetic verses don't thrill me.
A year ago I lost myself,
I saw the world shift and drop out from underneath me,
plunging my body into oblivion,
where for all this time I've lingered,
trying to make sense of out of nothing,
bleak, emptiness.
Whatever innocence I had in me was destroyed,
I've become the evil queen, drifting on murky waters,
and this ship is still sinking.
Whatever it is they all seem to see,
yeah, well that's escaped me.
I'm vile, cruel, and promiscuous.
But this queen needs no company,
I'm the serpent in the garden,
The murderer in the street,
The shark in the water,
I mean everything to nothing.
So do yourself a favor,
while you still can.
Run.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 8:38 PM UTC
Some say that
"depression doesn't need a reason."
That sometimes your brain is
"a mess of mixed signals."
I don't want a broken brain,
or one destroyed by repressed memories.
Where one day I'll wake up,
happy and cheerful and my silly self.
And then it comes crashing down,
like a brick to my chest.
I'll have another panic attack,
tears forcing their way to my eyes.
I'll freak out and scream and rant and rave
until I no longer know who I am.
Not like I ******* know who I am anyway.
I feel like a monster;
a creature hiding inside the ugly flesh of a human.
I can't be alone for more than 20 minutes
without my thoughts running wild.
Who would miss me if I was gone?
What are the consequences?
But I'm happy, right?
I'm the happiest girl alive.
I made promises.
I promise to never cut again
I won't smoke ***
I'll quit the cigarettes.
But that slow inhale and exhale frees me.
I exhale the hatred for myself
for a father who won't love me
and for a man who took everything.
Who robbed me of a youth that was promising.
I was smart, I could do it.
But how can you study
when the needle calls your name?
Or when you're hooked up to IVs
pumping life into your veins?
I'm "weak" because I self-medicate,
and being depressed is "sickening".
I don't want this ******* brain anyway.
You can have my thoughts,
or the paralyzing flashbacks.
You can take the agonizing anxiety,
and the self-hatred.
I just want it to end
before I lose it completely.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
Your eyes are not portals to your soul
They are not some archaic metaphysical equation
Ancient mathematicians formulated to confound
They are pastures for nymphs
They are branches for fruit
They are laurels for poets
They rend me open like a flaming axe
They tie my stomach like knotted roots
I lose myself in their dusky wilderness
In them, I observe universes
Perpetually exploding and collapsing
Your pupils are black holes
At the center of galaxies
Balancing energy and force
Bending light inward
Like a sickle glistening high over hayfields
In them I hear songs
And sagas narrated by savage tongues
Of catastrophic floods and rebirth
Aryan myths about oneness
In them I see IVs dripping
Candles flickering behind carved pumpkins
I loiter in them like a pauper
With a styrofoam cup
Gazing on them is nearly intolerable
Like glaring at hydrogen bombs blinding
It is like Hebrews
Uttering the name of El- who cannot be named
El- who is above mortal matrices
The eye that never sleeps
The ear that always comprehends
The self that waivers like the sea
Eternity ends when you blink
Infernos extinguish when you sob
I tremble before them
As if they're holy relics
Decaying into perfection
Oh look upon me one last time
My love
Oh glance at me before
I petrify into pillars of salt
Look upon me
Before I transfigure into an amnestic god
Bearing light pure
Peer once more into my binary pulsars, frozen
In a fathomless abyss.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 6:22 AM UTC
from the perspective of two depressed individuals
when suicide's misdirected its effect is residual
it spreads across the wet tear bed you left
where your pretend weekend friends slept
until they woke up in a cold sweat
blue lips pale skin & visible breath
hell hath frozen over & your hope is dead
while IVs penetrate your veins in a hospital bed
& your mother watches the long-delayed death of her egg
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 6:53 PM UTC
How sweet the sound of amazing grace that saves filthy sinners like me.
Who are not even close to worthy of accepting the gift of God's love that is
Relentless;
Unwaivering;
No strings attached.
He died a painful death upon the cross to save lives like mine.
Ones that can't even resist the smallest temptations put before us, though we know the extent of the evil one.
Why is it that we cling to the things of this world that are
Evil;
Destructive;
Corruptive;
Instead of holding onto the everlasting promises of our Lord Jesus that are
Hopeful;
Redemptive;
Life changing.
He took a lost, broken, depressed drug addict, and chose me to do His mighty work; to build up His kingdom.
Not once has He said you're not good enough and you'll never be.
But he took the
Lost me;
Angry me;
Addiction based me;
And said "I'm going to use your story, for my glory, and I'll make you strong enough to resist those things."
For when I am weak, that's when He is strong.
Stronger than any temptation ivs ever faced.
And just like Nehemiah, "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down."
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 9:53 AM UTC
I was
on the edge
sprouting tubes, IVs
bloated and heavy with fluid,
monitors tracing
the scampering of my heart,
my wheezy breath.
They wanted to strap the torso
of a corpse to my back,
the mouth hung open,
slack-jawed. I was
so terrified, wild,
and afterwards sat
on the patchy front lawn,
watching onion skins
shrivel and crisp.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 9:43 PM UTC
Today
Today I cried.
I tried,
But I couldn’t die.
Pills, pain,
Over, and over
And over again.
Now I’m stuck
In this white-walled hell.
Needles in my skin,
IVs in my veins,
Pumping liquids
And medicines;
Evil preservation of
The human cadaver.
Apr 19, 2013
Apr 19, 2013 at 10:35 AM UTC
He watches me.
Dark or light.
He stands, he waits.
Waits for what?
Last night he smiled at me,
I asked him why.
He told me a story of a girl
Who sounded awfully like me.
"One day she will realize why I am here," He said.
And still he watches me.
Dark or light.
He stands, he waits.
Three years ago I had asked him why,
If I ask again now he won't respond.
"Who are you?" I ask,
"Some one important," He says.
And still he watches me.
Dark or light.
He stands, he waits.
Twelve years I had asked him who he was.
I grow weaker.
My days on earth are numbered.
I am hooked to IVs and still he stands.
And waits.
When I close my eyes for the last time, I realize who he is.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 11:09 AM UTC
her voice
told me we were friends
she'll make me better
happier
she said
she is the only one who cares
she loves me
i have to listen to her
she'll make me perfect
fat pig she says
useless she says
but she loves me
so i'll listen
start out small
cut back
no more than 1000 calories
it'll get harder
she says this isn't enough
500 calories
400 calories
300
200
calories control me
as much as her voice does
1 pound
2 pounds
3 pounds
lost
more she says
stop completely
walk away
become beautiful
people say an apple a day keeps the doctor away
i have to live by that
weeks
months
they pass
thin
bones
beautiful
but i can't see
she told me it'll be okay
but i can't see
passing out
fainting
falling
death
feeding tubes
IVs
medication
she says this is what she planned for
i'll be perfect once i'm dead
because at death
i will be my thinnest
so i smile
as she tells me my pulse
is fading
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 10:38 PM UTC
I mourn for you
these tears that pool within my eyes
spill below its brim for you.
I cry for you
I scream till my throat's tissue 's raw
and this meek voice cracks for yearning you.
You lie there still
so still you sleep under covers of silk
while IVs feed nutrients to you.
Each eye closed lets slip a saline tear
that wets the pillow beneath you.
Each hour we are thrown down to eternity,
each minute we wait in unknowing fear
for each second that passes I clutch desperately to you
not wanting you to abandon me too.
----and yet----
Your life slips below my fingertips
pools and wets my swollen feet.
your death bed stinks of suffering
and my heart---my heart breaks
it BREAKS from loving thee.
Twist and turning disquieting
I'm going to BURST
this hurting is building
its unbearable
intolerable
I feel my world is losing grip
my sweetness died when you left me.
I mourned for you
So many tears have slipped below their brim for you
I screamed for you
my tissues raw from calling you
you never looked back as I ran for you
Fallen on knees I pounded the ground in defiance of you
I hate you, I hate you, I NEVER could have loved YOU!
---But then,
Your anguish was felt so strongly
its locks my bones
from head to toe
I fall---they break
is all this feeling from your pain?
---and then,
You healed me through
your memory kept my life among the living
your lingering smell
your fading laugh
kept the knife from meeting flesh
you!
Through your death, you saved my life
for that I will always love you.
Nov 7, 2010
Nov 7, 2010 at 7:11 PM UTC
Every night I wake from the same nightmare
Screaming ****** ****** flames echoing across the room.
Blink and I’m an infant, a 6 month-old cavity
In a crib crying rivulets of blood,
Drowning; sweat gushing in from all sides, boxed in like the pile of
ashes I still hallucinate about sometimes
(Would you rather burn or drown?)
Dean always chose to drown.
And in that twisted way he was his own man,
Always sky blue over jet black, but me; I
deserve to burn.
I guess it runs in the family.
Charred black: that’s my destiny. Hooked on IVs of
Liquid coal, onyx adorning my veins. In this (under)world
I
am
King.
My throne is carved out of fallen stars that
Couldn’t put themselves back together again. I sit on
Lipstick-stained skulls
(They have names, names that ring in the hollow of my
Heart, names that whisper;
Counting down the hands I’ve let loose, let go)
Its a tightrope of insanity that I’m tiptoeing on; teetering on the frayed
Edges between darkness and
Light
I cannot tell where I begin, where I end,
(is this all but a figment of my imagination?)
For Mom, Jess, Dean.
Dean
They are the cobwebs that still linger between my muddled mind,
Tethering me to a world of lies;
A world that has no place for a boy with a blinding smile and nightshade lips,
A boy who once dreamt of a love so good so pure
–but that was before–
Before I dug out the demons I’d thought I’d buried six feet under
the fireworks of that night on the 4th of July,
do you remember?
But that was the rose of my previous life,
Now all that are left
Are the thorns.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 2:41 AM UTC
Dear baby- I’ve heard you’ve already got fingernails, and I want to hold your hands already and say goodbye to you the right way. Dear baby- I’ve heard you’ve got a sister, and I’ve named both of your heartbeats under my skin and prayed for you in another lifetime. On Friday I trace your lives in ****** hospital gowns and loose IVs until I’m sleeping. On Friday I ask God to forgive me and he doesn’t answer. Dear baby- I will remember you every day until I am one hundred, until I can wipe the blood from my lifelines and tell you I am sorry.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
Coughing until there is no air left in my lungs,
So terrible, it stung.
My nose is clogged,
My vision is fogged.
The smell of hospital lingers,
I feeling pins and needles in my fingers.
Close to death,
I am doomed to rest in bed.
The IVs are inserted through my skin,
Quite a situation I got myself in.
It's cold,
When did I get so old?
Nurses are running about,
My voice is so weak, I can't even shout.
Who am I?
Where am I?
I cough again,
Feeling blood run down my chin.
It's so empty here,
Can't anybody hear?
The light is so bright,
My vision sees only white.
Why do I cling so desperately to life?
How is death easier than life?
My body is trembling,
I can hear my ears ringing.
I close my eyes,
And wait as the remaining parts of me slowly die.
It's failing now, the system is crashing,
Listen to my heart in it's desperate thrashing.
Memories are whirling around in my skull,
I breathe my last breath, listening to death's call.
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 1:30 AM UTC
A man asked me why I was more afraid of people than I was a hopsital.
With a heavy, yet numb heart, I replied:
"I have had more IVs than I ever had hugs."
Jul 7, 2018
Jul 7, 2018 at 1:22 AM UTC
I had a dream in France
that you were dying.
and so I came home
after two restless
days of flying
And now you lie,
your health in slow decline
dressed in white sheets,
alabaster cheeks
your IVs all entwined
I can't say I love you
quite enough
And
in front of you
I know
I must be tough
but I never knew that
loss would come before
the angels come
to lead you through
their door
You always believed
that
dreams held something true
I wish that
when I dreamed of death
I hadn't dreamt of you.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 3:23 AM UTC
Even though your body is breaking
Even though my heart won't stop aching
Even though my fingers are shaking
I love you
Even though it's really unfair
Even though it's hard not to care
Even though everything I can't share
I love you
Even though you're in so much pain
Always sick, again and again
Even though my tears fall like rain
I love you
And be warned you might see cry
Even though you're not going to die
And I won't be able to lie
I love you
And when you're hooked up to all those IVs
And when those lips can't kiss these
Even when you cannot see me
I love you
Even though your body is breaking
Even though my heart won't stop aching
Even though my fingers are shaking
I love you
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 1:58 AM UTC