Hey Nurse!
Hey nurse
What’s your name again?
Hey nurse
Can I get a Tylenol?
Hey nurse
Room 4 says he’s detoxing from something “worse than heroin” but he won’t say what…
Hey nurse
They’re crying in the shower again.
Hey nurse
I thought you guys were saying “hey nerds”
— haha.
Funny.
I wear a badge that says Nurse.
But mostly?
I answer to echoes.
Hey nurse
There’s blood on the sheets.
Hey nurse
He says it’s nothing.
Hey nurse
She says she’s fine but hasn’t eaten in three days.
Hey nurse
They keep calling you on the walkie like you’re a page number in a book they forgot to finish.
I am the duct tape between case notes.
I am the inbox that never empties.
I am the last cigarette offered before they admit they’re scared.
I am always, always walking into someone else’s storm with my own still thundering.
Hey nurse
Why do you look so tired?
As if my father didn’t die while I was still in scrubs.
As if grief doesn’t live in my jaw like a wisdom tooth I don’t have insurance to pull.
As if I don’t see him in every yellow-eyed man whose liver is writing its own obituary.
Hey nurse
Did you hear what she said to you earlier?
No.
I heard her dismiss me like a symptom she couldn’t Google.
I don’t get to scream.
I chart.
I don’t get to cry.
I hydrate.
I don’t get to rage.
I smile until the corners of my mouth become parentheses holding the parts of me I don’t get to explain.
Hey nurse
There’s a new girl starting next week.
Can you show her the ropes?
Tell her what it’s like here?
Tell her?
Okay.
Tell her:
The job is sacred.
But it will try to bury you.
Tell her there’s no CPR for compassion fatigue.
Tell her the hardest part isn’t watching people die —
It’s watching them give up.
Tell her the patients will love you.
And call you “hey nurse.”
And forget your name.
And remember your voice when they’re trying not to use.
Tell her she will wake up someday and realize she’s stayed too long in a place that stopped saying “thank you”.
Tell her the only reason you stayed was because there was always one more person worth staying for.
Hey nurse
They’re looking for you downstairs.
Of course they are.
They always are.
I am the matchstick,
the warning,
the altar,
and the pyre.
Hi.
My name is Hey Nurse.
But the people who know me call me
Missy.
The ones who love me call me fire.