ROOM WITH NO VIEW
When admitted from the ER you get
what’s left. It’s always the noisy one
with a roommate who moans between
coughs finally falling asleep when
dawn arrives. If you don’t wake up,
you’re moved to the colder room.
I’m handcuffed to a pole draped
with bags dripping fluids into a vein
keeping me sated with my own
custom palette. I try to pee in to
a plastic urinal that leaks and at night
I miss in the dark.
The complexity of dealing with simple
things quickly degrades my mind and I
become complicit and compliant.
After discharge, while standing in my kitchen
trying to find myself, the first flurries
of winter land as raindrops on my deck.
It will be hard to give up this
room with a view.