CPR

This is fiction

I gave CPR today,
And I know what death really means.
It’s compressions,
Mixed with epinephrine and atropine.

So,
It seems,
Nobody will ever be dead to me.

Not like she was,
As I tried to fix her spleen.

I tried,
So hard,
To stop the bleeding.

I wasn’t reeling.
I was being.
I was trying to keep her with me.

“I need a prolene.”
“Keep compressing.”
“Shock advised.”
“Keep her breathing.”

Fuck,
I’m sweating.

Which one of us,
Is just surviving?

It’s maddening.
We saved her,
But only barely.

CPR is ghastly.

I’m so sorry.

I broke her ribs,
And severed arteries.
Then I whispered to her,
“My apologies.”

Aortic contusion…
Bruised ribs…
Shut it out.
Get a grip.

I can’t stand it,
But I do it.
Trauma is telepathy,
And we fall in it.

And then,
It’s on to the next case.

“What’ve we got?”
“A bleeding brain.”

And then we start,
And do it again.

And then,
That death?
The one that we postponed?
It came for her,
Shortly after,
And then she knew the morgue.

Pulmonary embolism,
They say,
And death,
I knew her name.

What if it was me,
And my compressing?
What if…
I’m to blame?

My colleague,
He says,
“You can’t ever look back.”

And I think,
Wow…
I’m…
Taken aback.

Everyone is worth grieving,
But I’m alone in that,
In my feelings.

They say that apathy,
Is the only way to survive,
But I can never do it,
Not while I am alive.



And then I cry.

It’s how I get by.

I try so hard,
And then they die.

Her last moments,
Of consciousness,
Were looking into my eyes.

I was published today.
I should be celebrating,
But I can’t,
Because of my damn feelings.

It’s exhausting,
Having a heart,
That feels like it’s been bleeding.

But still,
I show up,
And I can say that I am trying.