An Emergency Room We Call a Nation
By Michael Roque
 

A year of in-betweens

in a vibrant life

now resembling an ER waiting room—

people-packed in varying states of anguish.

Those wheelchair-bound, abandoned in halls,

those bedridden, speaking in groans

and the many— 

sitting, standing seemingly unfazed,

but to an extent all commonly feeling pain,

a need for a doctor we don’t see,

a need for the aches to be eased,

but malnourished on stretchers—

Our only medics.

Beeps, screams.

Whines, cries.

Rushing feet,

panicked eyes

and another flatline

to collectively ring in every ear.

Heave—

heave—

heave—

Wait— and breathe,

wait—  and breathe.

I squeeze the sweat-soaked sheets,

as my soul strains through me by the second,

deflating my being like a liferaft with a leak,

leaving me stagnant in a drowning situation calling for patience.

Patience, while feeling a cast iron rod pierce through my heart,

clog my throat,

prod my brain.

Patience, while plowing through another day

by the grace of a caffeine-powered body.

By the mercy of a mind hoping tomorrow

might rebirth a fallen yesteryear

to remind me—

I’m of worth.

At last, doctor calls my name,

fires questions out the mouth like a Mossberg 500

and rushes away for another four months,

leaving more holes in a leaking plot needing to be filled.

No surgery nor novocaine

just more stagnance in a room

where spinning ceiling fans are the only movement seen—

the sole motion

spreading around everyone’s disease.

Am I far off somewhere?

Daydreaming in a car stuck in a roundabout,

having a bad trip in a brighter year,

or am I really trapped in an unending day?

An ER kept alive by insomnia

and a newly discovered inability

to walk through chaotic hallways— 

’cause never failing to freeze

are two legs

locking me

between entrance and exit—

stranding me

in a smothering embrace.