1 girl on a gurney, journey inertly yearnin’ to turn back early, return home surely
2 coughs crack, and the doc speaks curtly and sternly, “Get her a room, she’s hurting, Bernie!”

Room 3 or 4? Either’ll suffice as he sips terrible coffee
Clerk lurched back to the ward from a break, still sucking on edible toffee
Spliced in the silence she returns to schedule softly
Pt arrival to the unit at 5 minutes till 6, brain blitzed and foggy
Damages from the ravages of tactile battles with savages, namely cerebral palsy

Scars on her neural map
Wars fought unfairly with assaults and traps
Girls her age sing Halsey tracks
But she’s blinkin’ in sync with codes and stats

7 months she’s been staring at that monitor,
disconjugate gaze
Malaised Based Days
Eyes in a haze that betrays her age
Lost in a daze, fading away

No voice nor choice didn’t mattter when granny was there
When she came in, she had figure 8 braids in her hair
And a squishy plush with a fresh scent pod in the cushioned tush
Now meds stack high and the tone feels hushed and rushed

She’s got straps, pads, clamps, a ramp, clasp clamped around a scrap of napkin
through cramping hands she’s napping in a room full of tools like a mechanic
And at this age and this stage, just look at her fragility, no family left so she’ll go to a facility
No true touch, just latex lies, are you kidding me?

Heavy machine operators work the vent, feeds, and the lines overhead
I just pray they keep turning her in bed, praying they flip, rock, and soothe
Not just roll her like log to be moved
And I hope someone runs a comb cross her curls with loving warmth like someone cared
Not efficient sterility and a thousand year stare

But probably not. Scent pod gone. Plush long trashed. The feeling withdrawn.
No plush, no scent, no trace of the soul, just a doll with a rip and a tag in the fold
Pinkish polish, tattered and torn, on all 10 digits
Marched from the margins of her cuticles, till the lil’ end bit
Looks like she’s got aubergine pseudo-French tips
After they fully fade away so do her traces of relationships past
Who else will take the time to paint them, no one on 9th floor west

Her story stuck in the hands of random strangers, ever she grows old
And with changes that were made because of HIPPA dangers, her story’ll never be truly told

Rambod Meshgi, MS4
Saint Louis University School of Medicine