how long would it take to find me?
in a crowd, would you want to...
with the windows closed and barred,
washed and polished with care.
i don't think i will ever know what he meant-
to open and close.
notions phrases paragraphs so often get cut
holes you can see through
like my windows and my words
sentence structure attacked
and the grammar is all wrong
relief from those twisted voyeurs and mirrors
i don't remember entering this fun house.
no one steps forward
with nothing to offer.
i think i am losing my will.
lines get stuck in my head
i can't make it 24 hours
without wondering which is better
i'm afraid i'll be gone forever
the beauty in that timid contact was not lost on me.
Showing posts with label Julie Christenson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julie Christenson. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
aged and grown...so far
I sit with me and I wish for better company
The horizon line gets near--
but I can't see it anymore
All I can see is your face in front of mine
songs will fill tomorrow.
but I long for yesterday--
when those hours lasted for all those days
and through all those nights
and the stars. i can't count or touch the stars.
but I want to kiss your face--goodnight.
I can't reach that high above the earth
where you shine so brightly among those stars.
It's all sharply defined
referring to the equivalent of me.
Elation fades past days
Let's imitate the real thing and
exaggerate our courage.
Fake pleasure in the details.
Let's create an analogy
for the purpose of understanding
keeps on spelling out the obvious...
nothing has the same effect as you.
Cut holes so you can see through
my windows and my words.
You were the best looking one in the room tonight.
Losing light with desire--
the dawn is lying to me again--for so many years in a row.
I think that dream was you.
moving in me.
Curiosity is overwhelming me day by day.
but I won't be killed again...
that cat died nine times ago.
The horizon line gets near--
but I can't see it anymore
All I can see is your face in front of mine
songs will fill tomorrow.
but I long for yesterday--
when those hours lasted for all those days
and through all those nights
and the stars. i can't count or touch the stars.
but I want to kiss your face--goodnight.
I can't reach that high above the earth
where you shine so brightly among those stars.
It's all sharply defined
referring to the equivalent of me.
Elation fades past days
Let's imitate the real thing and
exaggerate our courage.
Fake pleasure in the details.
Let's create an analogy
for the purpose of understanding
keeps on spelling out the obvious...
nothing has the same effect as you.
Cut holes so you can see through
my windows and my words.
You were the best looking one in the room tonight.
Losing light with desire--
the dawn is lying to me again--for so many years in a row.
I think that dream was you.
moving in me.
Curiosity is overwhelming me day by day.
but I won't be killed again...
that cat died nine times ago.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Upon arriving early in the morning, I was paired with a very experienced hospice nurse. The first patient’s room we entered was occupied by a man in his 70’s and his wife, who was watching her husband die of metastatic lung cancer. He had been a client of the hospice unit for about two or three weeks and she hadn’t left his side. In his room was his bed draped lovingly with a handmade blanket, a collection of family photos, and his wife’s cot in the corner, impeccably dressed with sharp plaid sheets. Her suitcase was packed with care, neatly pushed under the cot. The nurse told me she had done this every morning, by 7 o’clock, since her husband’s admission. I remember thinking how strange packing that bag would have been. What type of clothes are appropriate for this setting and, worse, how many days worth should be brought?
The man in the bed had recently made a significant change in condition. Two days prior to my meeting him, this dying man had stopped speaking, stopped responding, and slowly slipped into what appeared to be unconsciousness. He was receiving ample pain medication as well as a medication to help keep his airway as clear as possible. This man with whom I never had the pleasure of speaking took slow, irregular breaths, often with many seconds between them. I noticed that his breaths produced a unique, calming rhythm as we all sat with him in near silence.
When we walked back into the corridor, the red-haired woman with the tightly packed suitcase ran to us with an unmistakable urgency. “I think something has happened” she whispered, “He hasn’t taken a breath in a long time.” The nurse and I hurried into the man’s room. Indeed, his slow, off-tempo respirations were eerily absent this time. He lay there, in his bed, without even his chest moving up and down. The three of us stood surrounding him, saying nothing, watching. Then after what seemed like an eternity of silence, the nurse went to the nurse’s station to retrieve a stethoscope. With it, she listened to the exited man’s silent chest, waiting in vain for any sound to be made. The nurse removed the stethoscope from her ears and took a step back.
“He’s gone” she stated. The man’s wife started to slowly shake and cry quietly. The nurse, who had developed a very special relationship with her, went to her to offer a very soft touch on the arm. Seemingly, with the sensation of this touch, the woman’s quiet tears became one long, loud wail, the sound nearly animalistic. She began to violently shudder, her shoulders wrapping in on her chest.
“Don’t go, Dad” she sobbed. “I won’t know what to do without you.”
I stood alone at the foot of the bed while the nurse and the newly widowed woman cried and touched the peaceful man. I attempted to hold in the tears which threatened to burn my cheeks, but listening to the woman’s guttural pleas to her dead husband forced them from my eyes. While I cried, I began to realize the overwhelming power of lifelong love and the devastation of losing it. I began to envision myself as an old woman, standing by the side of my future husband. I could see our life together, rolling up a screen like such slow film credits; a life of love, of struggle, of joy, gone in one moment. Now, this woman was left to continue a paired life alone. I began to wonder whether the life with this man was worth the devastation of losing him in the end. Would it be better to live and die alone than suffer the pain of such severe loss and longing? Amidst my naive mid-twenties thoughts came a pain in my chest--MY heartache I felt for the broken heart personified standing beside me. At that moment, I knew the depth with which I felt for this stranger’s lost love, all emotion is worth it in the end. However, the END was no longer the finale of some metaphor or extended romance novel. The end of this shared life stood before me in such explicit, blinding detail. Real heartbreak is something my 25 years had no way of preparing me for. So…I cried.
The man in the bed had recently made a significant change in condition. Two days prior to my meeting him, this dying man had stopped speaking, stopped responding, and slowly slipped into what appeared to be unconsciousness. He was receiving ample pain medication as well as a medication to help keep his airway as clear as possible. This man with whom I never had the pleasure of speaking took slow, irregular breaths, often with many seconds between them. I noticed that his breaths produced a unique, calming rhythm as we all sat with him in near silence.
When we walked back into the corridor, the red-haired woman with the tightly packed suitcase ran to us with an unmistakable urgency. “I think something has happened” she whispered, “He hasn’t taken a breath in a long time.” The nurse and I hurried into the man’s room. Indeed, his slow, off-tempo respirations were eerily absent this time. He lay there, in his bed, without even his chest moving up and down. The three of us stood surrounding him, saying nothing, watching. Then after what seemed like an eternity of silence, the nurse went to the nurse’s station to retrieve a stethoscope. With it, she listened to the exited man’s silent chest, waiting in vain for any sound to be made. The nurse removed the stethoscope from her ears and took a step back.
“He’s gone” she stated. The man’s wife started to slowly shake and cry quietly. The nurse, who had developed a very special relationship with her, went to her to offer a very soft touch on the arm. Seemingly, with the sensation of this touch, the woman’s quiet tears became one long, loud wail, the sound nearly animalistic. She began to violently shudder, her shoulders wrapping in on her chest.
“Don’t go, Dad” she sobbed. “I won’t know what to do without you.”
I stood alone at the foot of the bed while the nurse and the newly widowed woman cried and touched the peaceful man. I attempted to hold in the tears which threatened to burn my cheeks, but listening to the woman’s guttural pleas to her dead husband forced them from my eyes. While I cried, I began to realize the overwhelming power of lifelong love and the devastation of losing it. I began to envision myself as an old woman, standing by the side of my future husband. I could see our life together, rolling up a screen like such slow film credits; a life of love, of struggle, of joy, gone in one moment. Now, this woman was left to continue a paired life alone. I began to wonder whether the life with this man was worth the devastation of losing him in the end. Would it be better to live and die alone than suffer the pain of such severe loss and longing? Amidst my naive mid-twenties thoughts came a pain in my chest--MY heartache I felt for the broken heart personified standing beside me. At that moment, I knew the depth with which I felt for this stranger’s lost love, all emotion is worth it in the end. However, the END was no longer the finale of some metaphor or extended romance novel. The end of this shared life stood before me in such explicit, blinding detail. Real heartbreak is something my 25 years had no way of preparing me for. So…I cried.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I could feel that the day was coming. I knew the day was coming since I had started that two year long series of humiliations called nursing school. All I could do was wait and dread and hope that it would be a wrinkled, papery, old man in suspenders who would be the one.
My first suppository.
Though I was mentally and, perhaps, visually a little thrown when the day shift nurse told me what I would have to do, I mustered up all of the professionalism that had been forced down my throat over the previous one year of nursing school. “Okay, I am ready to meet this rectum, I mean guy…” I thought; and then I entered that fateful room. On the bed I see a man. He was not exactly the frail, sick older man with a heart problem I had envisioned. He was definitely not the kind of man a student nurse, a woman of 25 wants to give her first ever suppository to.
The man sitting on the bed in room number 204 was a 29 year old, handsome black man with a large number of tattoos and a large number of even larger muscles. As my eyes widened, I remembered what I was there to do. I introduced myself to him and he to me. His drawl was recognizable, his voice low and rolling. I asked the patient- or the fantasy of every woman from Martha Stewart to Lil’ Kim- whatever, to lie on the bed on his side and (oh my god oh my god) pull his knees up to his chest. This extremely understanding guy obliged and assumed this extremely vulnerable position. I tiptoed up behind his behind, gulped and placed one of my gloved hands on his hip. With the touch of my hand the patient leapt from the bed with the speed of lightning and ran into the bathroom, screaming “Oh HELL no.” My face began to burn, my armpits began to drip, and I wanted to run from the room, not to mention out of the hospital and the school of nursing.
After the longest one minute I haven ever sweated through, the hot black man came back into the hospital room. “Sorry,” he said and re-assumed the position. I took a deep breath and another step toward the bed. When I placed my hand on his hip this time, I flinched. And for good reason, because my patient once again jumped from the bed, tripped on the remote control cord and ran into the bathroom yelling “oh my GOD!” This time, he came out right away shaking his head and walked back to the bed without looking at me. I knew the longer I waited, the more nervous each of us would become, so this time, I went right for the…target. I was able to place my hand on his hip, and although I could feel him tense his muscles through his hospital gown, he stayed where he was. I moved my hand south and began to expose the aim of my lubricated finger. When the separating began my very impatient patient yelled “Oh my GOD” and exploded from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Again. This time, embarrassment did not come to mind. Swear words did. “That is IT,” I thought, “I have GOT to
stick this thing in his ass.”
My red face had turned from embarrassment to anger and back to embarrassment by the time my very fit patient came out of the bathroom. “I am so sorry,” he said. I reminded him that he could do it to himself or that I could have a male nurse come into the room to perform the task. He then reminded me that those options made him way more uncomfortable and that he promised he would stay in bed this time. So we began again as we had so many times already: his knees to his chest, the gown removed, my hand on his hip. I could feel him tense and shaking beneath my fingers as I made my move. However, my determination was strong and my reflexes were quick. This time, the insertion was imminent. With one fast motion, a blur really, cheeks were separated, fingers were thrust, and a suppository was placed in a beautiful man’s rectum. Sigh.
When it was all over, I carefully peeled my gloves from my hands while my patient sat up in his bed. As I walked around the bed, his eyes shifted and his shoulders slumped while his dark face darkened with a blush. I moved quickly, trying not to slip on the sweat dripping from my brow. The tension in the room was palpable; it felt as though it was the morning after an embarrassing, drunken sexual display the previous night. Unable to meet eyes, I told him I would be back later to check on him. I instructed him on how to use the surgical scrub when he showered, which somehow felt a little dirty. Once on the outside of the room, I felt safe and was finally able to breathe. I leaned against the wall and picked up his chart knowing that somehow I would have to write down what I had just done to this man.
My first suppository.
Though I was mentally and, perhaps, visually a little thrown when the day shift nurse told me what I would have to do, I mustered up all of the professionalism that had been forced down my throat over the previous one year of nursing school. “Okay, I am ready to meet this rectum, I mean guy…” I thought; and then I entered that fateful room. On the bed I see a man. He was not exactly the frail, sick older man with a heart problem I had envisioned. He was definitely not the kind of man a student nurse, a woman of 25 wants to give her first ever suppository to.
The man sitting on the bed in room number 204 was a 29 year old, handsome black man with a large number of tattoos and a large number of even larger muscles. As my eyes widened, I remembered what I was there to do. I introduced myself to him and he to me. His drawl was recognizable, his voice low and rolling. I asked the patient- or the fantasy of every woman from Martha Stewart to Lil’ Kim- whatever, to lie on the bed on his side and (oh my god oh my god) pull his knees up to his chest. This extremely understanding guy obliged and assumed this extremely vulnerable position. I tiptoed up behind his behind, gulped and placed one of my gloved hands on his hip. With the touch of my hand the patient leapt from the bed with the speed of lightning and ran into the bathroom, screaming “Oh HELL no.” My face began to burn, my armpits began to drip, and I wanted to run from the room, not to mention out of the hospital and the school of nursing.
After the longest one minute I haven ever sweated through, the hot black man came back into the hospital room. “Sorry,” he said and re-assumed the position. I took a deep breath and another step toward the bed. When I placed my hand on his hip this time, I flinched. And for good reason, because my patient once again jumped from the bed, tripped on the remote control cord and ran into the bathroom yelling “oh my GOD!” This time, he came out right away shaking his head and walked back to the bed without looking at me. I knew the longer I waited, the more nervous each of us would become, so this time, I went right for the…target. I was able to place my hand on his hip, and although I could feel him tense his muscles through his hospital gown, he stayed where he was. I moved my hand south and began to expose the aim of my lubricated finger. When the separating began my very impatient patient yelled “Oh my GOD” and exploded from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Again. This time, embarrassment did not come to mind. Swear words did. “That is IT,” I thought, “I have GOT to
stick this thing in his ass.”
My red face had turned from embarrassment to anger and back to embarrassment by the time my very fit patient came out of the bathroom. “I am so sorry,” he said. I reminded him that he could do it to himself or that I could have a male nurse come into the room to perform the task. He then reminded me that those options made him way more uncomfortable and that he promised he would stay in bed this time. So we began again as we had so many times already: his knees to his chest, the gown removed, my hand on his hip. I could feel him tense and shaking beneath my fingers as I made my move. However, my determination was strong and my reflexes were quick. This time, the insertion was imminent. With one fast motion, a blur really, cheeks were separated, fingers were thrust, and a suppository was placed in a beautiful man’s rectum. Sigh.
When it was all over, I carefully peeled my gloves from my hands while my patient sat up in his bed. As I walked around the bed, his eyes shifted and his shoulders slumped while his dark face darkened with a blush. I moved quickly, trying not to slip on the sweat dripping from my brow. The tension in the room was palpable; it felt as though it was the morning after an embarrassing, drunken sexual display the previous night. Unable to meet eyes, I told him I would be back later to check on him. I instructed him on how to use the surgical scrub when he showered, which somehow felt a little dirty. Once on the outside of the room, I felt safe and was finally able to breathe. I leaned against the wall and picked up his chart knowing that somehow I would have to write down what I had just done to this man.
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