"paramedic" poems
At the edge of the Waterfall
My motor gone the boat drifted faster and faster.
At the edge of the waterfall as I approached the falls
helpless hopeless I thought of my life subsiding
to words and no friend message or hopes to send my life
summed to press me quickly but no time for tears in my eye
I am afraid for soon I may die.
But what the hell I lived a good life everything
I wanted with very little strife.
What may lie at the bottom of the falls as I drift closer to the edge.
The tension grows it may all soon an I suppose
I think back to a time when everything was so sublime
and peaceful and free.
I know its time so please lord take me
I will be pleased to meet you and gaze upon
your face I will know that I with your heavenly grace.
So over the edge I fall and fall and fall.
I thank you lord it is over That's all.
So the paramedic says you're lucky to be alive so somethings
glimmers inside my head with St Peter Jesus and God
I'd be better off dead.
For I have a broken pelvis and life will be full of pain.
So St Peter Jesus and God do look fine.
Check with me at a later date, some other time.
https://vimeo.com/27129652
Oct 7, 2012
Oct 7, 2012 at 6:20 PM UTC
There is a blood clot in the center of Imagination Street,
I can feel it.
It blocks the path that follows through Creative Avenue
where cars horn, roar and protest, curse and smother with
a simple look of “Move the **** on!”
And yet no paramedic can remove the jumper that
lays from austere insipid life.
It's a victim of routine they say, jumped from the nearest skyscraper
hoping to touch the sky but fell miserably on to the streets.
There is an aberration stretched over the streets, I can feel it
because it's me.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC
For me the apocalypse is today,
as I lay in my pool of blood,
the world is ending,
I hear the sirens, a flashing ray,
I hear the paramedic say,
he won't live to see another day,
then I ask myself ,
why do I have to die this way,
making it my apocalypse,
my judgement day,
for as I die,
the world is ending
the world is dying with me,
everyday there is an apocalypse,
for everyone who dies,
and this one is mine.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 9:10 PM UTC
when I am writing I want to tell a story. sometimes thoses stories are not what the mind wants to read. but I want the heart to be forced to feel.
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paramedic 1: "young girl age 17, fought out to be, way more then she was meant to be"
silence fills the ambulance
paramedic 2: "has a few open wounds around the eyes, mouth and even missing a tooth"
the girl moves her finger
paramedic 1: "it's a sign"
paramedic 2: "yeah she's breathing but that doesn't mean she's alive, you can tell by her eyes. she has lost her sparkel".
paramedic 1: "she must have been here before cause she's fighting, even when she's already gone....she's still trying".
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Apr 23, 2016
Apr 23, 2016 at 12:49 PM UTC
I remember the night that you couldn't move
my brother and I remember the pain we felt
as we both called for an ambulance that lived right next door
remembered every dreadful second they are as 30 minutes click on by
as we wondered if you'd die
we drowned in tears as we were left alone
Jul 18, 2011
Jul 18, 2011 at 2:25 AM UTC
I was a Paramedic
I saved lives
Prolonged great inevitable grief
Witnessed the grotesque miracle of unexpected birth
And the ****** it brings
Sat on my *** became complacent
And depressed
Forgot to put into what was being taken from me
Over and over
I worked and came home to silence and destitude
I craved the excitement like a ********** would payday
I worked with the greatest personalities people that wouldn't back down
I had no gun
No hero complex
I used to be a Paramedic
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 9:07 PM UTC
I went to a birthday party,
But I remember what you said.
You told me not to drink at all,
So I had a Sprite instead.
I felt proud of myself
The way you said I would
That I didn’t choose to drink and drive
Though some friends said I should.
I knew I made a healthy choice, and
Your advice to me was right
As the party ended
And the kids drove out of sight.
I got into my own car,
Sure to get home in one piece,
Never knowing what was coming,
Something I expected least.
Now I’m lying on the pavement,
I can hear the policeman say,
“the kid that caused this wreck was drunk.”
His voice seems far away.
My own blood is all around me,
As I try hard not to cry.
I can hear the paramedic say,
“This girl is gonna die.”
I’m sure this guy had no idea
While he was flying high,
Because he chose to drink and drive
That I would have to die.
So why do people do it?
Knowing it ruins lives.
But now the pain is cutting me
Like a hundred stabbing knives.
Tell my sister to not be afraid;
Tell Daddy to be brave,
And when I go to heaven
To put “Daddy’s Girl” on my grave.
Someone should have told him
That it’s wrong to drink and drive.
Maybe if his mom and dad had,
I’d still be alive.
My breath is getting shorter,
I’m really getting scared.
These are my final moments
And I’m so unprepared.
I wish that you could hold me, Mom,
As I lie here and die.
I wish that I could tell you,
I love you and goodbye.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 3:44 PM UTC
Paramedic 1:
"He's losing so much blood."
Paramedic 2:
"It's a miracle if he can make it past this."
*Saturday night, and I'm in the back of an ambulance,
But not in soul, just in body, oh and in the company of so many wires,
I can't tell where they end and where I begin,
But the paramedics say there was a tragic accident and some flying tires.
We reach the ER, my stretcher is flying on the white tiles,
And soon enough I'm greeted by more wires than I can count,
They're saying that they want to hear my heart,
So I'm opened up past layers of tissues and my heartbeat is playing aloud.
I'm somewhere in a circus, learning how to walk on a tightrope,
One arm on the verge of life, the other on the verge on death,
And my feet are stronger than they've ever been,
I'm not afraid of the fall, I'm afraid they'll see the mark I've had since birth.
And they do, I see it in the face of those people wearing white scrubs,
Their faces become the color of their operating room attire,
They don't know what to do with me,
As they come to realize what's got me here is not the flying tires.
They see my heart, a land that is home to no one,
Yet a massacre is taking place between the northerns and the southerns,
A border holding together the mismatched territories,
But there is no compromising between two armies this stubborn.
Each side wanting to flood the other, wanting to conquer,
And the small canal that was once an uncharted place of peace,
Is now holding a rowing contest to the mind of the victim - me -
Who will reach it first and incorporate their power with claws and teeth...?
It was the time to surrender, ending all attempts at making amends,
And watch cannibals sailing in rivers of blood,
They think each accelerated beat is a new victory,
Yet it was a far away cry from it, it was a new tear, a new cut.
And when each side invades the other, they claim it as their own,
But they are only emigrants thinking they can reconstruct a desert,
It was only a land of chaos, they themselves have caused,
Where was once life flowing in veins, is now where resources are tethered.
And with no winner, the end approached,
The curtains already sweeping the ground,
Doctors wiping sweat from their foreheads,
Letting the hospital gown cover the battleground.*
Paramedic 2:
"Maybe there's a wife we can call, to you know ... deliver the news..."
Paramedic 1:
"It appears, he just went out for a drive in the middle of the night, with no phone or ID... not even his driver's license..."
Paramedic 2:
"Maybe it wasn't even his car..."
THE END
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 11:27 AM UTC
I keep the details dim
So on the outside looking in
Nothing is as at seems
Everything just beams
It all seems so copacetic
But it's really so pathetic
Before long I'll need a paramedic
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 10:42 PM UTC
You act as though love
is an epidemic,
a sickness sweeping the nation.
Something that needs to be forbidden,
something that requires a paramedic,
but love is not a disease.
It's the complete opposite.
It helps us see and breathe,
and know how to need.
It fulfils our dreams and
lets us sleep
knowing we're not alone,
and that we're not made of
sticks and stones.
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 11:17 PM UTC
An off duty cop
Walks into this
Bar
He has no badge
No uniform
He is no cop now
He's friends
With a young
Paramedic
Who drinks the
Guilt away
They stay till
Last call
And ask for some shots
To share with
The bartender
The cop wants to say
A few
Words
'To another life wasted
To another one shot
To another one dead
To another shot'
Then the paramedic
'To two good men gone
To blood on my hands
To the lawyers health
To another day gone'
The bartender had
A few words to say
'To tomorrow night
To the many cabbies
To the few how choose safe
To another shot'
When they've drunk
Their fill
The two friends left
In the cab
Waiting out front
That got hit by
A drunk driver
Who they spent
Last call with
To another drink
To another phone call
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
I wake in this city
This city that didn't bear me
This city that didn't raise me
And yet it's this city that i seek to find something of me
Not in the pubs or the clubs or the karaoke bars
Where revelers conspire to dream and drink to the stars
Nor the cafes where poets and artists in a foreign language create.
Pass the market stalls where secondhand books and vinyls are stacked like freight
It is to the quietened streets of the old town I go
Where i long for the walls to speak once more
To reveal their hidden histories
To help fashion some sense of a man
One unknownst to me, my fathers father whose name I share
A fine skilled seamster, thus a tailor by trade
Not arriving to this city for work on fabrics of nylon and silk
But to stitch and sew the flesh of limbs in a paramedic corps
Another pawn of the Great War under King George's command
Driven only by economic necessity from a penal homeland
Not of conscription, politics or some moral conviction at play
For the price of neutrality is one that poverty simply refuses to pay
Returning home to an Ireland of hostility or silence at best
Medals now lying deep in pockets not proudly pinned to chests
Irish heroes don't fight in a British war for a King's crown
No such stories from father to son shall ever pass down
And now, a grainy photograph, three medals for a sons son to take
A dog tag that bears my name, a number and RC to depict a faith
From a man exiled in his home as a forgotten prisoner of war
To honour a legacy i find myself in this city afar
Asking the same questions of him as to me
Is this city the last place he truly felt free?
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 7:37 AM UTC
She's going to make it
Lost a lot of blood...
****
High alcohol level
Ten minutes away
She's okay, she's okay
Losing her fast
She's gonna make it!
————————————
My head is reeling
Dear god, the world is on it's back
Please,
Stop panicking— it's only blood
No, I don't want an IV
It's okay, I'm okay
Don't give me an IV
Don't touch me, I said no!
agh!
Fears digress to slurred vocabulary
Over and over
"Am I broke? Am I broke now?"
Sep 23, 2018
Sep 23, 2018 at 3:30 AM UTC
Once
When i was a child
they asked me
"What do you want to do when you grow up?
What will make you happy?"
and i said that i wanted to be an ambulance
i didn't know the difference between that and a paramedic.
So they laughed at me.
The question came again when i was 16
"What do you want to do when you grow up?
What will make you happy?"
It took me a while to answer this.
My heart said "veterinarian"
but my head said "they'll laugh again"
so i remained silent
18 years old
"What do you want to be when you grow up?
What will make you happy?"
Well, i have no ******* idea what i want to be
but moving out of the house will definitely make me happy
so young and full of potential
i just needed space to let it grow
21
college
"What are you studying for?
Will that job make you happy?"
i want to do so much
but i had no idea what i was good at
probably nothing
22
Jessica
Forget the "job" or the "studying" studying question
let's get right down what's important
"What will make YOU happy?"
well that one is simple
It's her.
It can only be her.
Nobody else can make me feel as elated as when she's around.
She is the moon in the dark sky of my life lighting the way.
She is the magma in my core driving me to motion.
She is my best half.
She is my sunshine.
and now at 24,
She is my wife.
"What makes you happy?"
everything that is in my life makes me happy
starting with her.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 10:47 AM UTC
The dissonance in the air
visiting flashes sonically weaving trembling tales
of flash floods and brushfires. intertwined between and beneath
leathery scales, dorsal fins and rat tails.
Intimate whispered coded messages
massaging ear drum lines menacingly, scratching the passages, cruising through each hall.
tapping at every door.
With a gravely groan, reciting a indecipherable buddhist koan.
Laugh as you may
The moon will leave
Without a notice
We'll be without
Another day.
The dissonance in the air
leaving car crashes and birthday bashes in shambled states of stasis
smiling bits of shrapnel suspended in howling fits of laughter
smoldering hordes of children melting under summer suns
all while a paramedic belts out birthday songs
and a clown juggles displaced screws and cogs.
Disasters and dances have more in common than
dispatchers and discjockeys.
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 11:45 AM UTC
You know it's getting bad when you don't bother to turn the lights on.
Fight or flight instinct in the form of rivers running dry. Feeling blurry, a forgery. The end is always the same, penalties lying in ditches and the sirens running red and blue like the fourth of July.
Shimmering sawdust that forgets how to become human again. Try to remember the moments you stilled into statue. They become important. Trust me.
This is not Jerusalem. There is no holy left. It's a too-human fight, and I hope what they say about time healing things is true because this scraping, this constant rearranging of the keys, it's too much.
When nothing makes it better, not the kisses, or the pills, or the planets. Nothing. The past and present chewing me up and spitting me out, until the future can get its hands on me too.
I am still trying to figure out right and wrong. I am still trying to find out where the bandages are, but it's hard, you know?
She had soft smiles and a degree in empathy framed in her office, but I couldn't stand her for more than a month. I could see her pen twitching in her hand. After all, there are boxes to tick if I get too honest.
I shouldn't have called my mom, or let her fish me out of the river. While I was coughing liquid from my lungs, I heard her tell the paramedic,
She could have learned to breathe underwater, if only she'd tried harder.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 6:28 PM UTC
On a cold autumn day, on the edge
of a railroad bridge, fifteen feet high,
a young bulky black kid contemplates
the impact, the end awaiting him
on the surface of a historically
winding boulevard. Below, service
men and women stand wet from rain,
stand huddled, foggy with confusion.
A paramedic, understanding
the surgeon’s warning, stands poised, close by,
blowing curls of smoke from her thin lips.
Had I the nerve, or just the access,
I would climb the slick, grassy hillside
that leads to the old rusted train tracks
and ask the young boy for his thick hands,
ask him what he thinks the moment was
like before L’Wren Scott held the rope
in her hands, the last breath in her lungs?
I’d ask him what he thinks it was like
before Don Cornelius planted
cold metal against his head and pulled
the trigger? Ask him what he thinks was
in the oven before Plath entered the kitchen?
You know, just to be heard one last time.
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 9:14 PM UTC
I drove out to your house last night
and your mom told me that you've been well.
And I don't know why that hurt so much.
But I've been thinking that maybe it was because,
you've moved on from the memories of us.
Maybe you've forgotten the scent of my body wash,
and it's ****** that I can still smell hints of yours in my sheets.
The night you left,
I drowned myself in a bottle of your favorite wine,
and I could've sworn I heard echoes of your voice in the ripples
of the dark plum liquid.
I spent the night throwing up into the sink,
and sobbing into the bath mat.
Maybe you've forgotten my electric-blue fingernails,
that traced lazy circles on the back of your hand.
Maybe you've forgotten the kisses I planted on the corners of your mouth.
Maybe you've forgotten just how much I begged
for you to stay.
Because I hear you've been doing well,
and I still can't listen to your favorite song without heaving.
I guess it hurts to be forgotten,
just as it hurts to remember.
I drove out to your house last night
and I crashed my Toyota into a street light on my way back.
The flickering light casted a shadow on the hood of my white car
and I noticed that it looked a lot like the ones we casted
on the night you first kissed me.
"She's lost too much blood," the paramedic wore the same cologne as you.
I screamed as they charged the defibrillator
full of the memories I tried to escape.
"Time of death: 1:35 AM."
You cried at my funeral.
I was sorry.
I guess it hurt letting go,
just as it hurts to be let go.
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC
I was 12 & my sister was 9.
As children with my dad we grew up fine.
Until the day my "mom" kicked him out he lived in his van.
Then she decided to move in a child molestor man.
If we were out with our friends after 5:00 he beat with his belt.
Abuse, fear, & hatred is what we felt.
He disrespected, abused, & ***** us.
He was an infectious disease he did as he pleased.
My sister told her teacher.
The police or paramedic never did reach her.
She died several times.
She is still alive....us he has not returned to find.
I couldn't save her she was 9 & I was 12.
He told me if I tried to save her the same thing would happen to me.
He tied "my brother" to a chair.
With a rag over his face he poured water there.
I think he tied, gagged, & locked "mom" in a closet where she peed herself for I don't know how long.
He said she was at work but her purse was still there so something seemed wrong.
"My sister" he spent hours punishing her by strangulation & recessesiation repeatedly because he is sick.
No body wanted his ****
He strangled & killed the dog next door.
For the next three years or more.
All three of us became his *** slave ******
"Mom" got him a loaded gun even though we were poor.
He would **** on our toothbrushes.
As soon as we fell asleep to **** us to our beds he rushes.
He would spit in our cereal.
It was unbelievable.
Abuse & evil inconceivable.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
i went to a party, mom
i remembered what you said
you told me not to drink, mom
so i drank soda instead
i felt really proud inside, mom
the way you said i would
i didn't drink and drive, mom
even though the others said i should
i know i did the right thing, mom
i know you're always be right
now the party is finally ending, mom
as everyone drives out of sight
as i got into my car, mom
i knew id get home in one piece
because the way you raised me, mom
so responsible and sweet
i started to drive away, mom
but as i pulled onto the road,
the other car didn't see me, mom
and it hit me like a load
as i lie here on the pavement, mom
i hear a policeman say the other guy is drunk, mom
and now i'm the one who will pay
i'm lying here dying, mom
i wish you'd get here soon
how come this happened to me, mom?
my life burst like a balloon
there is blood all around me, mom
most of it is mine
i hear the paramedic say, ill be dead in a short time
i just wanted to tell you, mom
i swear i didn't drink
it was the others, mom, the others didn't think
he didn't know where he was going, mom
he was probably at the same party as i was
the only difference is, mom
he drank and i will die
why do people drink, mom?
it can ruin your whole life
i'm feeling sharp pains now, mom
pains just like a knife
the guy who hit me is walking, mom
i don't think it's fair
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 9:41 AM UTC
I am alright
is what I say even when I have flashbacks everyday of the intimidating looking paramedic carrying me into the ambulance car as if I’m shattered porcelain.
We’re alright
is what my mom says even when she leaves the house she constantly calls and when we aren’t in the same room she repeats “Kelly? Just making sure you’re alright”.
I am alright
is what I say even when I have to look away when the clock strikes 9:27 am because that’s when everything suddenly went black and then spotted white.
We’re alright
is what my mom says, a single parent paying MRI scans, emergency room bills, antiseizure medication, the neurologist, the neurosurgeon, the epileptic neurosurgeon, without a cent from my father, and her worry lines are piercingly more clear to me.
Does anyone really wanna hear the truth?
I rub my fingers across my head imagining ripping out the millions of neurons lighting paths across my brain. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
I’ve kept my mouth shut because it’s polite but I want to tell everyone who’s pretending to be my friend because they feel sorry for me to **** off because my health is none of their business.
It all catches up to me when I sit in the hallway at Cincinnati Children’s and I watch kids with tubes down their noses and needles in their arms and think to myself:
I can’t be one of them, can I?
This can’t be real, can it?
But I guess I’m alright.
The meds make me feel foggy, like I’m somewhere between awake and asleep.
Where my mind feels like it fell through a trapdoor and into a vacuum.
If it was up to me I wouldn’t leave the house. The only places I feel safe are in the nurses office or in between the 4 walls of a hospital with my mom holding my hand.
That’s what seizures do. Turn an 18 year old girl into a 5 year old, wanting to run in a closet and slam the door so nobody has to see it happen again.
No going down stairs alone, no locking the door when showering, no getting drunk at parties, no driving, no living your life.
So you wonder if I’m alright? If alright means seeing my mom cry for the first time in years, if alright means sleeping 3 hours a night, if alright means having to rely on others because I can’t do anything by myself..
Maybe I’m tired of lying.
Maybe I’m not alright.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
Eighty, he cried for someone dead.
They knocked. The door knocked back.
The good morning news to nobody.
911 called, time of death answered.
Fingers left prints. Hands left bruises.
The birds will still sing tomorrow.
The diary never held many secrets.
He remembered her. She remembered nothing.
He waited for her to return.
Joining her on stage, her wife.
Lost hopes. Reward for their restoration.
The paramedic drove; their love rode.
"Goodbye sir. I'm sorry. I failed."
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 9:07 PM UTC