There is no poetry

Mijia Murong, 2T3 PB

There is no poetry in diseased tissue sitting inside a pathology jar, holding all the answers to the question, “How long do I have, doctor?” 
no poetry in progress notes that say “consult palliative care” 
Or the chief resident’s pager piercing the hallways at 2 am 
Or an ICU full of beeping monitors 

There is no poetry in the way we euphonize death with words like
“recurrent”
“poor prognosis” 
“not a surgical candidate” 

We tuck our fear into fancy words and protocols and a rainbow of codes,
in funny sayings like GCS 8, intubate 
in acronyms like MVA – motor vehicle accident 
GSW – gunshot wound 
DNR/DNI – do not resuscitate/do not intubate 
VSA – vital signs absent

There is no poetry in the way a man’s pale limbs flew into the air in the trauma bay every time the paramedic forced her body’s weight down on his sternum 
or the way a patient’s self-inflicted, nail gun injury just missed the cluster of vessels that would have caused the hemorrhage he was looking for 

There is no poetry in a hospital  
just flesh and bones and beeps and moans 
just people – healing, dying, in pain, hopeful, scared
  I can’t find any poetry here.