written c. October 2025
Irradiated by the glow of the monitor,
the atmosphere in the ED turns sombre
as the text on our pagers translates in our brains
and we anticipate the impending pain,
pretending we're fine, though we all know we're lying,
cuz we just learned a child was shot and is dying.
It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last,
cuz I've only worked here 4 months, and it's racked up so fast,
the number of children who I've witnessed pass—
but still, every time, I'm aghast
at the way that this wretched world still turns
even after a mother learns
that her child's outcome was the worst,
because every time I hear them start to keen,
it cuts me like the first,
a wail so obscene
as she realizes she'll never hold them again
and this trip to the ER was their end
because her grade scholer suffered a gunshot wound to the head
and now, in an isolated room, lies dead
when they should be playing games or going to class instead
of going cold and pale in the puddle they bled
on the crisp white sheets of a hospital bed,
ribs broken from the failed CPR,
45 minutes in room 29 while the nurses tried in vain
to find a pulse on a victim with a bullet in their brain
and as their mother mourns this unthinkable voilence,
my job is to sit and bear witness in silence.