I wrote this poem a long time ago. I was thinking about how being a physician and taking care of other people let me avoid my own feelings. Doctors are trained to hide their feelings. When I was an intern, a patient died on my day off. I came back to find the person gone. No one on the team said anything. I was afraid I’d done something wrong. Was it my fault? Finally I screwed up my courage and spoke the the attending physician. “Oh!” he said, “I meant to talk to you about that patient. They had a lethal pulmonary embolus from the clot in their leg. They were appropriately anticoagulated. You did nothing wrong. This happens.”
I think the war is more of the same. Chaos, to avoid feeling. Let’s not do that. Let us grieve as a world. Let us not melt down in a conflagration. That is my prayer.
Chaos
So familiar
If there’s a mess And chaos
Home that’s home
Busy busy
Run around
Fire fire
Fix it
Crisis
Now what
Deal with it
No time for feelings
No no
No time
I don’t want chaos
Liar liar
Chaos is so safe
Hero hero
Put out the fire
Catch the baby
Confront
Not a hero really
Scared
Hiding
If I stop the chaos
I will have to feel
Maybe it’s ok
To feel a little
I forgive myself
I understand the chaos
I can let go of it by degrees
I feel so vulnerable
In the quiet clean
safe place
Take your time
sweet self
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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: WAR.
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