On-Call

Pagers beeping
Record keeping

Alarms blaring
Nostrils flaring

Amidst piercing bings,
The phone rings

I’m pulled up, down, left and right
Pounding stairs day and night

Juggling vitals, labs and EKGs
Uncertainty is my only certainty

Tasks crash like ocean waves upon my shore
One after the other, ever more

Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning, but I stay afloat
Every time a patient says ‘thank you’, it’s my lifeboat

I was blessed to find, while on call
A pot of coffee down a darkened hall

Cup after cup, I drank it up
Sometimes having it all still isn’t enough

I rest my eyes just before sunrise
Grateful that all my patients stayed alive

Borderline

You and I walked the line-
The thin border that separated us
We got as close to each other as we could

Your mood swing shook the ground, turning the crack between us into a canyon
Sprawling vastly between us, there was no way to stitch or suture us back together
I was shaken down by your rumble
My hopes for us buried in the rubble

Slowly, we picked ourselves back up again
Separating the pieces of you from the pieces of me
Resurfacing, scratched and bruised
Older and wiser

You seem borderline
Leaning so close in
Then so far away
I might be borderline too
We swerved toward and away from each other
At a dizzying pace
I’m trying to figure out
Where is the line with you?

You crossed the line with me
Too many times
It was my fault
For not drawing a boundary, not staying true to my heart
But I’m drawing it now
By cutting you off
Instead of cutting my skin

You kept invading my body and my life
I’d rather do other things with my time
So please, darling, mind the line