Scrawled on the Sterile Walls

Oh, honey
What a way to go
Amongst the veiny corridors
The beeping
Pulse of cold machines
The toxic smell
Of cleaning halls
Fluorescents
You can never sleep
Espresso'd nurses drawing blood
Iodine
Stains the doctor's hands
The mask of cold dreams on your cheek
Pumping drugs
Straight to the marrow
You're sacrificing limb from life
Soap operas
On the staring screen
Fuzzy pixels technicolored
Distracting you from all the food
And scraping skin cells from you chest
Families
Hover by the door
Hoping for best
Expecting worst
Garish cards
All clones of pity
Flowers droop and quickly die
Rushed visits
Panicked halting words
Awkward conversations hover
Changing hands
Impersonal beds
Crudely disguised coffins with sheets
Boundaries
Ripped down, torn away
Groping tendrils and revealing
Saving lives
And costing others
Morphine strips away perspective
You whisper
Words you've said before
Confused, you turn back to the wall
Dry burning
Fills your eye sockets
Fresh from the operating room
Your strength gone
Fight to lift your hand
I haven't the heart to tell you
There's not much hope
So I lie
And you sleep with a frown on your lips