Four Surgeries In As Many Months

Four times they opened the flesh and bone, Four times I woke to a world of stone— No river of morphine, no drift or dream, Only the scream behind the scream. White coats turned with empty hands, No balm for fire that sears and brands. I wept in shadows of hospital light, Each hour a tunnel with no end in sight. If coins had clinked inside my palm, I'd trade the law for stolen calm— A vial, a capsule, a pill that's laced, To soften the vise of time and place. But silence crushed the walls of my mind, And reason fled what it could not find. Three days I wandered in jagged flame, A nameless ghost without a name. Suicide bloomed like a blood-red rose, A constant whisper the daylight knows. This is no mercy, this is no care— This oath they swore hangs in the air, A mockery writ on parchment scroll While I, in agony, begged for soul. If kindness lives in the sky’s great dome, Let it lift me gently, carry me home. I ask not gold, I ask not fame, Only to breathe without the flame. To see the sky turn dusk to day, And feel the stars not slip away. O let the wind move through my chest, Before I lie in endless rest.