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write a poem about a part of your body you dislike….

Hindparts

Swiftly plummeting

away from

the sanctuary of

exotic words

like zaftig

or Rubenesque.

Hurtling,

gravity-laden towards

Bottom-heavy,

Pear-shaped.

Jennifer Lopez

now forsaken

for a more

matronly silhouette.

Where are the

double knits?

_________________________________________________

write about something that happened to you from the first person narrative view point of someone else.


It’s about 10:00 pm, only one hour left to the end of my shift.  The emergency room has been hopping all night long.  I can’t wait to get out of these scrubs into the tub; these double shifts are killing me.  I have a broken arm on one side of the room, a possibly broken hip on the other side, and this 22 year old, multigravida that is about ten weeks along and seems to be miscarrying.

She is here alone, which does not surprise me.  Her face is drawn and she looks like she hasn’t slept for days.  Every time I check in on her, she says everything is fine.  She is very compliant, and has a flat affect.  I notice her shivering on the gurney, she is wearing two hospital johnnies like a robe and nightgown set.  I ask her if she’d like another blanket.  Her knees are drawn up into her chest and she is staring into the corner of the room as if a portal is about to open.  I have to catch myself from looking over there while I take her blood pressure. “They are ready for you up at ultrasound honey, I’m going to grab a wheelchair and bring you up there.”  I say.  She nods and stares.  I feel for her, but she probably needs another kid right now, like she needs a hole in the head.

We have a silent trip in the elevator up to the Maternity word.  I wheel her over to ultrasound 2 and wait for that ignorant technician to arrive.  I know some people think Hadiyyah is crabby because she is eight months pregnant, but I have known her for five years and she has always been rude.  I know she has something against male nurses, but I work the ER and she works up here so I don’t let the bitch get to me.  When I come back for my patient, she is bawling her eyes out.  “What happened dear?”  I ask, because my mother raised me to have some common decency and I just can’t have this girl crying while I wheel her around without me saying something.  So she chokes out that Hadiyyah told her “there is no baby.”  I just cannot believe the nerve, I mean don’t they have some kind of jihad code or something against acting like that with people?  Anyway, we are about to pass the nursery and my patient just wigs out, completely loses it.  She plants her feet on the ground ala The Flintstones and I can’t push the wheelchair anymore.  She is gasping, wailing, and telling me she can’t do this right now.

I want to tell her, honey I can’t do this right now, my shift is about to end, but I remember my mother and her common decency and I take a deep breath and tug on the corner of my mustache while I gather my thoughts and then I said, “Listen honey, look at me, look at me!  You are a healthy young woman.  You have a healthy little boy at home.  You were in your first trimester, usually when you miscarry this early something was wrong and its nature’s way of sorting it out.  Now you are going to go home and recuperate and after a few months, you can try again.  So, you just wipe your face and look up at that nursery, because the next time you look in there your baby will be in there.”  Well she just took it all in, the hiccoughing stopped, and the tears dried up and for a minute, it was like we connected.  I felt better and I could tell she felt better.  I wish I’d told her that Hadiyyah is a homophobic bitch on wheels but I don’t want to lose my job.  I stay around a little past my shift to do her discharge papers and stuff because that is my job and I love it, and hell I am good at what I do.