"milligrams" poems - Hello Poetry

“i haven’t seen her in years,” said the hospital bed, “though i’ve seen many others, who sobbed violently like her, who sunk into me like a young, rusting anchor. who could not get comfortable in one position or one mindset or one truth. i have felt them dig in their heels and try to ache and and fight and scream, just quietly enough not to wake their roommate.” “i remember their shapes,” said the hospital bed, “how their voices rose slowly like a far-off ambulance siren, how their faces fell when they remembered the emergency was right here. i have been kicked, punched, clung to, held on to, as if gravity switched suddenly and they feared yet another aspect of the universe was against them. i’ve seen ***** sheets and i’ve seen clean ones. i’ve seen boys with tattoos on their faces and razor marks on their arms. i’ve seen pain. i’ve seen girls who wouldn’t turn off the lights, girls who couldn’t turn off the lights, girls who had turned a light off once and never wanted to do anything else. i’ve seen pain. i’ve felt love before more often than the lovers thought they loved, more strongly than the fighters thought they could fight. in shaky hands folding down blankets more carefully than they have all week in heads that flop ungracefully onto pillows, securely, fulfilled. in the slow turn of a hospital bracelet around a pale wrist, in large, golden brown hands, inspected through tear-blurred eyes, through scratched glasses, picked up off the floor after discovering force won’t carry a ring of thin plastic as far as you thought. i hear change in whispers, good night, good luck, in hushed acceptance, in ‘yes, i really am here’. in screams that send nurses in panic only to find you were laughing. in numbers, in ‘five hundred milligrams,’ in ‘three gained pounds’, in ‘one more day’. i hear shock, i hear fear, in echoes of parents’ voices, ‘why here? why now?’ i have heard and seen and felt all of them. but she,” continued the hospital bed, “hasn’t been in here in a while. i haven’t heard her whisper to her roommate about what she did ‘that night’, i haven’t seen her sneak away from her pile of pajamas as if she didn’t just hide something there, i haven’t heard her empathize with a pencil sharpener. it’s been so long, it’s hard to imagine,” said the hospital bed, ‘i hardly remember her'. if only the hospital bed knew that she could hardly remember herself from then either, if only it knew she hadn't stopped fighting once she left if only it knew how she felt when they said she only needed to go to therapy every other week. it felt like progress, and it felt like hope, and no one better than a hospital bed could understand that.

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Oct 21, 2014

Oct 21, 2014 at 11:43 PM UTC

keegan

Hospital Bed Said

“i haven’t seen her in years,” said the hospital bed, “though i’ve seen many others, who sobbed violently like her, who sunk into me like a young, rusting anchor. who could not get comfortable in one position or one mindset or one truth. i have felt them dig in their heels and try to ache and and fight and scream, just quietly enough not to wake their roommate.” “i remember their shapes,” said the hospital bed, “how their voices rose slowly like a far-off ambulance siren, how their faces fell when they remembered the emergency was right here. i have been kicked, punched, clung to, held on to, as if gravity switched suddenly and they feared yet another aspect of the universe was against them. i’ve seen ***** sheets and i’ve seen clean ones. i’ve seen boys with tattoos on their faces and razor marks on their arms. i’ve seen pain. i’ve seen girls who wouldn’t turn off the lights, girls who couldn’t turn off the lights, girls who had turned a light off once and never wanted to do anything else. i’ve seen pain. i’ve felt love before more often than the lovers thought they loved, more strongly than the fighters thought they could fight. in shaky hands folding down blankets more carefully than they have all week in heads that flop ungracefully onto pillows, securely, fulfilled. in the slow turn of a hospital bracelet around a pale wrist, in large, golden brown hands, inspected through tear-blurred eyes, through scratched glasses, picked up off the floor after discovering force won’t carry a ring of thin plastic as far as you thought. i hear change in whispers, good night, good luck, in hushed acceptance, in ‘yes, i really am here’. in screams that send nurses in panic only to find you were laughing. in numbers, in ‘five hundred milligrams,’ in ‘three gained pounds’, in ‘one more day’. i hear shock, i hear fear, in echoes of parents’ voices, ‘why here? why now?’ i have heard and seen and felt all of them. but she,” continued the hospital bed, “hasn’t been in here in a while. i haven’t heard her whisper to her roommate about what she did ‘that night’, i haven’t seen her sneak away from her pile of pajamas as if she didn’t just hide something there, i haven’t heard her empathize with a pencil sharpener. it’s been so long, it’s hard to imagine,” said the hospital bed, ‘i hardly remember her'. if only the hospital bed knew that she could hardly remember herself from then either, if only it knew she hadn't stopped fighting once she left if only it knew how she felt when they said she only needed to go to therapy every other week. it felt like progress, and it felt like hope, and no one better than a hospital bed could understand that.