Young Writers Society

2015

This NaPo is going to have a fairly strong theme that requires a little bit of introduction. As with my last two poems I'll be writing on themes of medicine, medical ethics and my experiences in my intern year, but hoping to make these themes and experiences as relatable as possible to people who have no experience with any of them.

While written selfishly, I hope whoever reads this thread can maybe gain some insight into a world that is so close to people and to people's most intimate private lives, and yet so foreign to the majority of people. I know a lot of people here may have previously had negative experiences with illness and hospitals, whether with themselves or family members, and may even be distrustful of doctors, but I hope that whoever decides to read (lol it'll be like four people so I don't know why I have such pretentious goals set xD) will try to do so with an open mind, and take it as an opportunity to see things from the other side of the fence.

It has a secondary purpose of causing me to be reflective on my own clinical practice as I sit down to write a poem every night, and hopefully this reflection will in fact improve my practice. As somebody fascinated about the links between the mind and the body, by chronic pain disorders, by mindfulness as therapy for physical illness, I hope this NaPo is, in however small a way, going to assist me in becoming the doctor that I one day want to be.

1.

He wanders. He doesn't remember
These corridors of limp fluorescent bulbs and linoleum floors.
Bare metal trolleys parked and piled high with plastic gloves, needles in trays.
The smell of detergent clothing the scent of gangrenous legs and incontinence.
He doesn't know these women in blue but they know
That infection breeds on his fingertips and they know
That they don't have time to read him bedtime stories.

intern on call - please prescribe night sedation.

When did we decide
that a sleeping potion with a 'z' in its name was superior
To soft words
and hand-holding?

I am so excited to see this journey play out this month, it's a perspective foreign to me but I feel like I am inside your pocket and experiencing your moments and livelihood, it is both fascinating and exciting and just makes me happy because I get to slip into lines like "gangrenous legs and incontinence" that is SO far from an everyday experience for me and the sheer wonder! of this tone that speaks as though it were a -no-big-deal- kind of thing is the whole empathy and escape part of reading, no?

Already with 1. it feels to me like a microcosm little adventure view of a world. There's the story of the man who wanders and doesn't remember and the conflict of ethics and medicine is just great :3

2.

Its maw is all consuming.
Even when you are safe
from the broken springs of an on-call mattress
and the infinite ringing of bleeps and phones,
your mind trails its way back to what you
left behind those cavernous gates

new diagnoses - the pancreas, the bowel -
organs people never given much consideration towards until
they rebel and try to kill the host.

It is exhausting to consider people in their tenth decade
whom you want to save, are hopeful to save,
Without the astonishing reminder that even if you do
they will not survive long

3.

"Women's Problems"
evokes only
the smell of rust
Those damn feminists picketing in favour of tampons
and abortion

it does not remind us of the mechanics
of pushing eight ounces of human flesh
between the floorboards of your body

we just advertise
discreetly
talk
in hushed voices
a rite of passage for women of a certain age

we give up the integrity,
solidity of our own bodies
for another generation of humans
and simply cope,
silently,
for half a century

and listen, nodding, keeping mum.
to the outrage over
every one of our choices and
the confident affirmation that

"Until you've been kicked in the balls,
You don't know what pain is"

too ashamed to explain
the spare pair of underwear
in every handbag

too ashamed to explain
the spare pair of underwear
in every handbag

And they wonder why we carry purses! Like. Yes. Heck, my sister used to have a pair of stretch pants with her just in case. I've had to go through a store with stained pants on, looking for a pair at the thrift store to buy and wear! XD

I might be weird, but I kind of love talking about periods. And I love bringing it up to guys, too- not because I wanna be like "ahhhh womanhood suckssss, woe is meee" but because I don't think a lot of guys learn much about periods. I really think these things should be common knowledge, and should not be embarrassing. Once you start talking with people about it, it becomes far less embarrassing. Heck, forget about guys; I didn't know much about periods and my monthly cycle for the longest time, and I still probably don't know as much about it as I should!

My point is: I love that poem! Sorry for rambling. XP But I really enjoyed it.

PREACH that last poem bro. Yes ma'am thank you and good night.

Haha I work general merchandise in a store that carries health and beauty products and apparently the guys don't even want to touch the tampon wall.

But seriously these are so amazing and insightful and I have so much respect for you. <3

4.

There is an Old World comfort in six-bedded wards,
And the stubborn curtains that refuse to close,
The hum of the drug round, the clatter of clipboards,
Echoes of the station, where morning conversation flows.

The travelling cuff saleswoman goes around the beds,
And makes small talk while the machine ticks away,
And doctors, dieticians, physios each poke in their heads,
And with a breathy smile, say what they came here to say.

The corridor grows quiet as day becomes night,
And each trashy magazine comes into new hands,
Visitors come and go, and the nurses turn out the lights,
Like the matron of a dormitory that is hers to command.

There is a rhythm on a ward that we each keep alive,
And look! How in the face of illness, such a thing could thrive.

5.

Fatigue
Drips from your bones,
Like honey from the comb.
Every muscle wound tight as a
pocket watch.

Your body has forgotten food,
Water.
It has lived by medicine alone.

Close your eyes,
Ignore the numbers that swim there,
The fear of things you have forgotten,
Fear of things yet to come.

Rest.

It is only eleven hours
Until it starts again.

6.

I. Lisinopril, bisoprolol, frusemide, aspirin, atorvastatin, tamsulosin.

Sixty four, portly farmer.
At some point his heart gave him a warning
About not eating bacon.
Now, he wakes up in the night three times
And he goes for long walks with the dog
(Sometimes the wife comes too)

II. Methotrexate, folic acid, alendronate, cholecalciferol, solpadeine.

Eighty four and birdlike.
Her knuckles have always been swollen but
Despite everyone's best efforts
She tripped on the carpet three weeks ago and snapped her wrist.

III. Quetiapine, lorazepam, sertraline, pregabalin, zopiclone, N-acetyl cysteine.

Forty, her handbag a chaos on the bed beside her.
She doesn't remember how many pills she popped or why but
The pain was too much and she
seeks respite in the quiet room at the end of the department.

IV. Oxynorm, midazolam, hyoscine hydrobromide.

Ninety, it doesn't matter but let's pretend
An actor, with a terrible West Brit accent and pink trousers, once upon
a time.
His breath rattles as it leaves his body,
But he doesn't hear it.

7.

It is sad how much of your life
Becomes wrapped up by hospitals

I recently had a parcel delivered to the staff canteen.
My father had a friend who was an inpatient for weeks -
I used to meet him for machine made coffees in the reception,
In scrubs, my bleeps lined up on the table in front of us, heralding me.
"You look tired," he said once, and hugged me.

(He isn't a hugger.)

I left the common room of my own hospital res less than twelve hours ago after twenty six hours inside its walls. (We had Thai takeaway delivered too, two interns standing in blue scrubs and stethoscopes beside an ambulance by the hospital entrance, as if this were Grey's Anatomy). I meet my once short-distance boyfriend now
in the brand new, cathedral vault concourse of a country hospital, the coffee shop is shut, as is the canteen,
And he reheats the leftover dinner my mother packed for him in the audit office -
(A far cry from the entrance way, it is small and poky and about thirty degrees)
We sit surrounded by confidential chaos and his boss comes in and does not bat an eyelid
"You're a new intern?" he jokes. "Visiting, from another hospital."
Of course, because I must be a doctor of some description to accept this as the norm,
To be fiddling with the settings of a Miami J neck brace, shooting off rapid fire chit chat about electrolytes and ECGs.

(You'd have to be a doctor of some description to live and eat and sleep and breathe this place, and still look somewhat adjacent to healthy)

8.

We are getting too good at saving lives.
But not at counting how much
each little burden weighs:
The clouding of vision,
The stinging of feet,
The swelling of ankles,
How every day the legs and lungs protest a step earlier.
The memories of yesterday slipping through fingers,
but the taunt remains
Of long ago, when the body was strong and lithe.
Sometimes they make churlish comments about playing God -
playing Frankenstein
feels more appropriate

9.

"It's nothing personal,
I just hate doctors."

Normally I am cognisant enough,
optimistic enough, green enough,
to know callous comments are code for,
"I am enveloped in bitter fear" or
"There is a pain gnawing at me,
I just want it to go away, no ransom paid."

But at the end of a day,
counted by millilitres of water,
a haystack of needles,
it takes a little more conviction to not just smile and say,

"Sorry, I just hate assholes.
Nothing personal."

10.

still
there is something
magnificent
about rattling off words
that are imprinted on the inside of your skull
in pink highlighter
they smell of coffee, five years of the dark library
the darker walk home

it fills an unknown hollow
to speak in a code
that took the whole of human history to build