Intensive Care - By: Rob X

her husband is wheeled in at midnight.

stained in bright blood at his shredded wrists, the corner of his mouth,

quaking, eyelids half-mast

she is furious quietly,

from her spot wrist-deep in another man's--

--no, boy's open abdomen,

holding him together from the inside.

she is a triage nurse promoted to surgeon by necessity,

by overcrowding and underfunding, by war and violence,

you said we'd go together,

she seethes, pulling on the sutures,

(made of what's left of her scrubs,)

you promised.

two lives leaking from her fingers now, not one,

why did you come here to die, she thinks, selfishly.

why did you make me watch you do it.

in the end she loses them both,

the boy first, then the man.

and she is left standing in the rubble,

hands as empty as her heart.

Please give a detailed explanation about the meaning and main idea of this poem.

this short poem is a peek into a woman's relationship with her husband's mental health, as well as her job as an ER nurse. it emphasizes the insane amounts of stress people working in intensive care face, as well as a small metaphor for how she's had to "hold him together" through the course of their marriage, if you really wanna read between the lines.

Please explain your writing and thought process regarding this poem.

turns out there is a lot more war than i thought there was going on at the moment. i don't know if it was shallow ignorance or what, but the idea that there were people dying whose lives would never come even near brushing mine, but were also suffering pain beyond imagining definitely sparked the inspiration for this poem. the poems i usually write are about pain, and this was made towards pain that i sort of touched against during an ER trip.

Why did you choose to write this poem?

i went to the ER recently and they are extremely overstaffed. i thought those themes would be fun. i really like writing things from within action, cobbling stuff together with barely-there flashes of a scene, something that lets the picture paint itself. it's nowhere near a good poem, but it is a pretty one.

Do you have any tips or anything to share with the youth writers who may be reading this?

be yourself. take your subtle alien vibes and display them in your words proudly.