And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me
Away from me
Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"
So who's going to watch you die?..
I never paid attention to this song or the lyrics up until a few months ago. It actually really bothered me. It was a very idealistic view of losing a loved one. This song doesn't tell you about the horror of the hospital night. Of waiting to hear anything, and hoping with all your might that he made it through.
This song always takes me back to the moment in the hospital. I remember getting there before his parents and just walking around like a zombie in the waiting room. I remember looking at all these people around me and not being able to process it. And when his parents finally made it to the hospital we were all taken to a small room to wait for the doctor. They sat on one side of the room, and I sat on the other by myself. Then the doctors and nurses came in...and I knew.
It seemed like a scene from all the movies I've seen in the past, and I couldn't help but start crying for I knew what they were going to say. I remember one of the doctors looking at me in surprise due to the fact that they hadn't said a word and he asked "wait, have they spoken to you yet?" and all I could do was shake my head. Then his mother said words I will never forget, "he's gone isn't he?" and the doctors said yes.They said generic doctor things, they tried everything, etc. It didn't matter anymore. He was gone. I asked if I could see him, but it was against protocol. I kept saying that I just wanted to see him, that I needed to see him but that didn't get me anywhere.
That was the moment all hope for the night disappeared.
And looking back, I realize that was the worst part of the night for me. I was alone in facing the worst moment of my life thus far.
Just alone.
I remember his mom not wanting me in the room with them, and being taken out of it. I remember her piercing cry as the door closed behind me..I don't think I will ever forget that either...I remember standing and facing a wall and talking to myself. I remember the nurses laughing, and talking about dinner as if it were relevant to anything.
Nothing made sense.
My family eventually got there, and then his friends did too. All I could do was keep chainsmoking with them. I couldn't leave the hospital, I couldn't leave him. I remember telling my mom that I couldn't leave him because they were going to take his organs and he needed them. Eventually the shock took over and I couldn't feel anything.
I kept trying to figure out if it was a dream but I was still in the same place and no ninjas or dragons had
appeared. I wasn't suddenly in a whole different place doing something else. I knew it was real. The thing about this song is that it romanticizes nights like these. That's not reality or how it will ever go for anyone. And when I read this part of this poem, it takes me back to the same place too, but in a way that makes me feel that someone else knows the reality of nights like these, and then I don't feel so alone.
there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.
but sometimes I think about
it.
the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.
too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody
more haters than lovers.
people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.
there must be a way.
surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.
who put this brain inside of me?
it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.
it will not say
"no."
-Bukowski
