I’m running and my breath is coming in short, sharp gasps. A pull in my left side threatens to stumble me but yet I cannot stop. I can feel his breath barely on the back of my neck and in my head I see again his eyes wide in anger and red with gin and rage. The growing in my stomach threatens to unbalance me but I keep going. I have to.
I set my focus on the big oak tree in the distance; if I can only get this far, I can climb the tree and in his drunken state he won’t be able to find me and even if he does, he won’t be able to climb the tree.
I am almost there when I trip on the tree root. I land on my stomach, hands out to protect myself and I feel my left wrist snap. Tears from my eyes yet I get up and I go and I go. My nightgown tangles around my ankles but I hear him now, calling my name and the names he calls me when no one is around.
I am almost to the tree when I look over my shoulder.
I see him in the moonlight, wavering with drink but still walking at a good clip. I shudder. He brought the shotgun.
I get to the tree and jump for the nearest low branch. I have done this many times before; this tree holds my secrets and I come here when I need to be alone. Now I come for succor.
I am high up in the branches when he gets to the tree. My heart is pounding so hard I think he must be able to hear it. I will the branches to protect me, the leaves to shield me from his insanity.
He stops under the tree, and I can tell he is scanning around, looking for me. He wipes his forehead with the dirty rag he keeps in his pocket. I almost gag; that’s the same rag he shoved in my mouth last time he caught me.
I am thinking he has maybe given up because he sits and leans his back against my tree. I want to shout at him; his filth and evil has no place in my haven.
I move a little and one single acorn falls off the tree. I watch in horror as it bounces off the bald spot on the top of his head. Almost like slow motion, he stands and looks up in the tree.
My treacherous nightgown near glows in the moonlight and I know by the humorless grin that he has found me.
He raises the shotgun and points it at me. “Get the hell down here, girl”
I instinctively take one step back, and the branch under me snaps. I am holding on with both hands and balancing on one foot. “Please,” I beg. “Please put the gun down.”
He sneers and I see his yellowed teeth. “You can’t bargain me, girl. I said get the hell down ‘fore I blast you down. You and that bastard you’re carrying.”
I instinctively grab my belly. Bastard indeed. He should know; he put it there.
“Please,” I say one more time as he levels the gun at my abdomen.
In slow motion I watch his finger line up on the trigger. I see the spark as the bullet flies out and drunk as he is, the bullet finds its home in my abdomen.
The world goes white and then black. “Daddy, please,” I think as I feel myself fall.
buzzing floating, the ether around me
like a thin veil over my eyes.
I think and I am there and I
see you sleeping.
Black shirt, sheet around your waist.
Left arm up on your forehead in slumber.
And I am closer when I think it and I am
hovering over you and if I could breathe in my spirit state
I would blow you a kiss.
And before I know it I am home again,
falling with a jolt that shakes the bed.
well the dreams have nearly stopped.
Im back to dreaming of symbols and signs
and random acts of weirdness.
No more waking breathless
with need and anticipation.
No more mooning around and wondering
‘what if’.
I ran away in high school, I can’t do it again.
Its sad, sometimes, being a grownup.
I think its called compassion fatigue—
the sense of ‘oh man not another one’
or
‘geez just take your pain meds/abx/fluids and go’
I hate it in myself.
I love being a nurse
I love my patients
I love the difference that I make for someone
on a daily basis.
But
I guess sometimes I am worn thin…
sometimes I have given and given and given
and its just been taken.
Its the patient’s right and I don’t blame them.
Im there to help them, hold their hands and teach them.
But the tank runs dry occasionally;
No repletion
No refill on the emotions.
And I need to retreat for a while
Hide in my bed, my blankets, my dreams
to find what I’ve lost used and given.
And hopefully get up the next day and
give again.
If I were a drinking woman…
well, I’d have a beer.
As it stands though, my release comes from pathetically typed words
in a hidden journal
hiding in the forest.
its strange, this lonliness…
it hits me like a wave on an otherwise sunny day.
Some chalk it up to hormones
but that’s the coward’s way out.
I run my life doing for others,
it is no surprise that I am left empty
by day’s end.
When I tell you I’ve been busy all day, I
get disdainful response.
When I tell you I am sad bored lonely confused,
I get a quizzical look and a change of subject.
Hell, when I talk about work, you change the subject–
in the middle of my sentence.
And yet there you go
kissing my neck when I am not looking.
Mixed messages reign supreme in my life and not just from you.
I need more than a kiss on the neck once a week
I need more than a bemused frown when I try to explain how I feel.
I need some connection, something a little more
I need
I need
I need….
My selfishness amazes even me, sometimes.
listening to Sweet Child O’ Mine by GNR tonight brought tears to my eyes.
I want that kind of love from someone.
I want to feel special.
When you came home and immediately started in on me like I am dumb…
damn.
I can take it like a woman, babe.
Trust me.
I am strong and I am capable.
I can let your criticism roll off my back
and I can bypass your thinly-veiled
anger.
Hell
I can give it right back to you and better.
I can take it like a woman.
I can smile at you when you hurt me
I can swallow back tears with the best of them.
I can roam the internet, late at night,
searching for what you somehow can’t give me
or
don’t want to give.
I can fold your towels and wash your clothes
all with a determined, housewife air.
Inside though,
I am a woman and I am strong
I have thoughts, I have feelings.
I am smarter than you think–
smarter than I let on, most times.
So yeah, babe, I can take it like a woman.
I guess you’re the one who needs to worry now.
It comes upon me smoothly, like velvet across the delicate skin
at the base of the spine.
All at once I am consumed with chills, with fever.
My pupils dilate, and I am lost in the
dream again.
My shoulders rise with each breath
and I feel stirrings deep inside.
I breathe slowly, prolonging the moment
aching for the release but
consumed with the journey.
Breaths come quick now and my
hands clench and unclench
behind my closed lids I see you
In my soul I feel you and when it comes
I gasp.
The untouchable touch,
the sudden rise and fall,
again and again.
All without a word spoken or
the caress of skin.
All within the dream the haunting visions
of your eyes and body
as they consume mine
again and again.
I sigh in my release.
This is what I do. I put patients in their rooms, I start their IV’s and draw their blood. I hang their IV fluids and I send all kinds of their body fluids to the lab for various tests. I give them pills, injections, and IV pushes and I teach them about the medications as I give them. I change bandages. I check their blood sugar, their vitals and their EKGs. I give them crutches, braces, shoulder immobilizers and slings. And I teach them how to use them. I advocate for them when their pain is out of control and I medicate them as fast as possible. I call social work if they have issues with housing, abuse, money, insurance, transportation. I give them a turkey sandwich and milk for the road. I put their catheters in and take their catheters out. I measure their urine. I am interested in what their vomit looks like. I prepare them for their Xrays, their CT scans, their MRI’s and whatever exotic things the doctors come up with. I hold their hands when they are crying and I hand them tissues. Sometimes I cry with them. I help them to the bathroom and I wipe their bottom if they can’t. I change their sheets when they are in the bed. I turn and postion them as needed. I clean up a lot of blood, vomit, urine, and just about any other substance that comes out a body. I run IV fluids into their veins and sometimes into their eyes. I review their discharge instructions, I teach them about their medications and activities for when they go home. I escort them out the door. I decide which room the next patient is going to go to. I put that patient in the room.
I do this with five patients simultaneously.
Sometimes it feels like I’ve left all my compassion at the door;
Or I’ve given so much, I’m empty and dry.
My shoulders still damp with others’ tears.
I come home and I am tired
or my legs hurt, or my back hurts
from bending, lifting, pulling just one too many patients this day.
Sometimes it feels like I
have given so much to others that
there is nothing left for myself.
parched and dry emotionally, and
hungry for the same compassion
that I have spent this long day.
And I fall into bed exhausted
My arms wrapped around myself,
searching for some type of comfort.
And yet,
and yet,
I get up the next morning, if not refreshed at least
slightly rested.
And I pull on my white scrubs and
put my stethoscope around my neck.
Back out into the world,
spreading more sunshine and healing,
no matter the cost to myself.
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