in my third year of being a zombie

i know something about hospitals.

dry eyes, tight throat. picking at my cuticles.

I have fear every time i wake up and see a missed call

or text message on my phone. 
“you have to come down on the first bus” “can you fly out there?” 
“Tell work it’s a family emergency” 
All the headaches.

I have body pains like boa constrictors

in my shoulders shifting and squeezing

all the muscles. I have been trying to notice, how my body defaults to tense.

do you know? how many times in a day

I roll my shoulders back, take a deep breath. I was not breathing before

this. I didn't used to be destroyed.

I walk around with my mind in hospitals.

knives that cut through tissue of infants. Removing bones. Little limp 
bodies on metal tables. Pale faces

look at you like you betrayed them. Too young to know it’s to save 
their lives. Once,

we spent days getting excited about going on an airplane

only to have her two year old body shake with fury, scream. 
“i’ve been tricked” 
because

the stale glow of the airport lights are too similar

to the hospital’s.

I can speak of

straps that hold the wrists of grown men. Panicking. blood boiling. and 
doctors who
“won’t give that junkie any post-op pain killers.” I walk in the room, look
in his eyes.Gaze past the new stitches and

cotton mouth

to see someone with my flesh and my bones. It is only that his brain

failed him so gallantly. but his heart

still beats as lovingly as always.

I know long rides on the bus. And my face pressed on the cold glass. somber trips to

see people on the edge.

My phone rang today.

My granny.

curtains of blood rushing out of her face and

“her heart”

and

“failure”

and

I already start planning how to tell work it’s

“a family emergency”.

I consider, what it means to feel stress. 
What do you believe a crisis is? 
What is enough to make you cry?

I have crippled myself, through hospitals.

I would never.

i can not.

i do.

I am.

i am so angry.

I am so angry.

I am so angry.