4/20/2026 16:22

I have awards for this.

Lifesaving.
Meritorious service.

Framed proof
I knew how to keep going.

Fourteen years.

I put myself through school
working full time.
First in my class with a job.
Started the day after graduation.
First to pass the boards.

Of course I did.
Of course I did.

I learned early
how to keep my hands steady.
How to keep my face empty.
How to answer fear
with procedure.

Haiti.
Refugees.
TB clinic.
Hep B clinic.
Drug treatment.
Nineteen correctional facilities.
Eight states.

Still
none of it taught me
how to keep my parents alive.

Still
I gave it everything.

My twenties.
My back.
My sleep.
My nerves.
My holidays.
Every soft thing
I could cauterize
and still call myself good.

Still
my father died anyway.

Cirrhosis.
Hepatic shock.
Organ by organ.

Still
I was at work.

Still
he had spent the eighties
driving drunk
again and again and again
before the laws changed,
before habitual offender meant
a man could pass through
a system like mine
enough times
to become routine.

He could have come through intake.

Not as my father.

As a name.
A wristband.
A charge.
A chart.

He could have been one of mine.

Still
he wasn’t.

History missed him.
Then death didn’t.

Today
my mother called me at work.

Of course she did.

The biopsy from Thursday.
The call on Monday.
The news I have lived beside
for years
without letting it touch me
finally touching me.

The jail gets no reception.

Of course it doesn’t.

I had to go outside.
Sit on a bench.
Cry in scrubs.
Cry with my badge on.
Cry like someone
briefly excused
from being useful.

And still
the first thought was

what is any of this for

if I cannot save her.

How many med passes now.

How many names.
How many foil packs.
How many wrists.
How many inmates
angry at my face,
my voice,
my answers,
the order,
the wait,
the world.

I went back inside.

Of course I did.

Did an intake
on a man angry about his meds.
He stood beside me
making a fist.
The officer stepped in.

Still
I kept going.

That is the part
I cannot forgive.

Not him.
Me.
No, not me.

The fluency.

The way the body learns
to keep serving
even while my mind
is on a bench outside
trying not to picture
my mother dying.

Name?
Date of birth?
Allergies?
Current medications?

Still
I knew the next question.

Still
I knew where to chart.

Still
I knew how to finish the shift.

Like a machine.
Like a good one.
Like the kind
they give awards to.

And what if that is all this is?

What if I gave fourteen years
to a profession that hates me,
ate my life,
called it service,
handed me a plaque,
and sent me back in.

What if all I have to show for it
is dust on a shelf

and the knowledge
that I was useful

useful
useful
so fucking useful

everywhere
except home.