I sit within four silent walls,
Waiting for answers
That may never come.
The clock moves,
The sun rises and falls,
Yet the questions remain.
Uninvited companions occupying
Every corner of the room.

What is happening within me?
Why does this pain cling so tightly,
Wrapping itself around muscle, bone,
Thought and spirit?

I try to escape it.
I call upon memories of laughter,
Of loved ones gathered around a table,
Of morning birdsong
And summer breezes moving through trees.

But pain is stubborn.
It follows me there,
Casting …

Read more…

Doctor, you see only the faint visible smile
on my exterior, my hand reaches out to shake yours
as you enter the space.

But you cannot see the “me” within,
the fear, the stress, the anxiety
that circulates inside me.

These emotions swirl within,
poking and prodding,
they hang like a weighted chain
about my heart.

I guess one could say
I am an imposter,
a person in disguise.

But couldn’t the same be said of you?
I guess you were trained
to keep your …

Read more…

You stood in the quiet spaces
where fear gathers its weight,
in exam rooms humming with doubt,
in moments when breath was forced
and time seemed unwilling
to promise tomorrow.

You were there.

Not only with stethoscope and chart,
not only with the knowledge of medicine,
but with something far rarer:
a presence that did not rush,
a listening that did not measure itself
against the ticking of a clock.

I remember how you listened to the story,
as if each word mattered,
because to …

Read more…

You took an oath not to be a machine,
not to be a ledger of codes and signatures,
not to be a pair of hands
moving briskly from room to room
as if compassion could be measured in 15-minute increments.

You took an oath to listen for the tremor beneath a voice,
to feel for the pulse that falters under your fingertips,
to stand between suffering hope and say,
“I will try.”

But somewhere between the stethoscope and the …

Read more…

The world has slipped out of rhythm,
like a clock knocked from the wall
that still insists on ticking,
though the hours no longer agree.

Nothing aligns with the way it lived
in my body a year ago.
Then, there was a sense of ballast.
Morning came without dread
clinging to its edges.
I could rise,
place my feet on the floor,
and believe, perhaps naively,
that the ground would hold.

I believed the voices we chose would,
at minimum, remember us.
That disagreement was …

Read more…

We are born into corridors,
measured, labeled,
painted neutral,
walls rising before we learn how wide
our thoughts can stretch.

Lines are drawn early:
This is far enough,
this is acceptable,
this is where you stop.

We are told our ideas must sit quietly,
folded into boxes like unused maps,
that imagination is dangerous if it wanders,
that questions should behave
and answers should already be known.

Life, they say, is safest when it stays
inside the margins.

But something restless stirs
beneath the rules.
A pulse.
A whisper …

Read more…

The years pass without ceremony.

They do not always announce themselves.
Sometimes they slip by like quiet weather,
like afternoons we cannot later recall
except by the way the light
once rested against a wall.

Time moves like autumn wind,
unannounced,
persistent,
tender in its own indifferent way.

A milkweed stands in a field,
having grown tall without noticing
the exact moment it became mature.
Its green has deepened,
its stem stiffened with understanding.

Now the wind arrives,
and the pods open
not in grief,
but in readiness.

Each …

Read more…

There are pauses in life
that stretch like thin threads
between two cliffs
fragile, invisible,
yet holding everything that matters.

In those long silences
when the air thickens
and the mind becomes
a loud companion,
I wonder
are these pauses gifts of grace,
spaces to gather courage,
a chance to map the next step forward?

Or are they doorways through which
fear seeps in
and takes its seat inside my chest?

The world rushes on, demanding answers
before the question
has even settled in my heart,
results before thinking,
certainties …

Read more…

They tell me the physician’s art lies in the stitching of skin,
the analysis of shadows on X-rays,
and interpreting numbers in a medical chart.
Yes, there is skill involved.
a steady hand, a quick eye,
and a good memory for pathways and procedures.

But I wonder.
where, in the span of 20-25 minutes,
is the art that cannot be quantified
or coded?

It’s found in the stillness of listening,
in the weight of one person’s story
resting in another’s hands.

A doctor …

Read more…

I come to you with stories
I cannot name.
They press against my chest
waiting for a moment when
it feels safe
for them to be set free.

Pain is a language
I find difficult to speak aloud,
and the silence between us
feels like a waiting room
that will never empty,
pressing in on me,
catching my breath.

Two strangers,
white walls between us,
your eyes move toward the clock,
while mine look at my folded hands
resting in my lap.

I wonder
am I just a time …

Read more…

The door closes with a soft click, sealing me inside a room that smells of alcohol and cotton swabs. The light is too bright, pouring down from overhead panels that have withstood the test of time. The entire room is bathed in a white-wash of light, leaving no shadows, except those that lie within me. A token landscape or two adorn the antiseptic walls, attempting to distract me from the …

Read more…