Didn't want to be alone.

Didn’t want to be alone

Patients and nurses scurry to and fro,
Amputees, double amputees,
Stroke victims folded fetal of muscle atrophy
As if Medusa caught them cold, naked, and afraid
Screaming “NO!” and “Please!” As their dismal lonely
Future is laid bare in front of them.

Making my third round I come across Joe
Dead and dying, dying and dead
simultaneously. Smiling, while brutally
being eaten from the inside, this proud mans eyes shout
“Death! Come if you want me!”. Listlessly waiting.
As he stared out the window, I left.

Late, quiet, patients’ room lights turned low.
Exhaustion overtakes them now
A patients’ sister sleeps on the couch uneasily.
Paperwork creeps up on me, documenting the hells,
I’d witnessed, and inflicted care upon  those
staring up with silent, knowing, sad eyes

Preparing for my fourth round, I saw Joe’d
Walked from his room, invisibly.
Only to sit down next to patients’ sister, and he
Sat proud and resting, his smile mute in his sound sleep
“Joe!” I call rushing to the sick mans’ side. “Why …!?”
I stopped. Freezing as I saw, he had died.

Rushing for a chair, with a nurse in tow.
“Joe! I’ll help you, don’t worry”
I said, playing as if he were still alive. So that
Patients sister would not guess she slept next to a corpse.
“All death is the same” I said to myself. Though
I said it more urgently than before

1:14AM the Nurse pronounced Joe.
Who’s going to clean the body?
So I wipe the tears from my minds eyes, gently, calmly
donning gloves and readying the towels for the task
“All death is the same” I remind myself. Though
I know this one’s different,
he just didn't want to be alone.