rain

rain in the night

louder than heartbeats

pain

hard as raindrops slam slapping

waiting for nerves to sing

in the night

while the rain falls

in the dark

heart thumping

heart beating in time with the rain

in time with pain

in the night

when the heart is a round drum

leading a dance in the dark

truth in each beat

vibrating in rhythm with the rain in the night

louder than heartbeats marking pain

in the night

while rain falls louder than hearts can hear

tonight

 

 

David Trudel   ©  2014

 

 

siren calls

sirens tear open this day

softpillowed dreams crumpled

pinned by each imagined shriek

flying up from blood soaked gurneys

remembering that we are seconds away from a 180

recalling acute pain and trauma shocked eyerolls

focusing on the ambulance ceiling

not quite able to disassociate

tethered by a thousand nerves to now

I listen to cries that I’ll never hear

feeling empathy for the agony of strangers

torn from their routines into the brightness of disaster

as I lie awakening to reverberations of machine screams

wondering about final moments

about what’s behind the next door

and if I should get out of bed

to dance with sirens

 

 

David Trudel     ©  2013

 

 

In The Night

I feel each molecule of splintered bone in the night

Constricted by wire twisted tight

I wonder what dance or battle is occurring at the cellular level

In the refusion

It isn’t always easy to bond once ties have been severed

At this moment it doesn’t appear to be an easy seduction

More of a battle

Subcutaneously the soft tissues are going through the same process

Nothing is flowing smoothly

Muscles feel pinned down and tug with each breath

The mountain ridge of incision line is eroding into gentle hills

I hear the drip, drip, drip

Of blood over metal echoing loudly in my ears

I try to resist the impulse to get up

But fail

I take an extra strength Tylenol

Just one

An air strike against the soft bullets

Of pain

This is not a war

Just a skirmish

This is not pain

Just discomfort

I remember pain

Archived now

This is not pain

Just discomfort

I feel my wounds settling

Subsiding slowly into the process of healing

Learning the normalcy

Of just discomfort

Because it is a kind of justice

To pay for miracles

With small sufferings

Here in the dark

Listening to mechanical rhythms of the heart

Marking each moment

Of slow improvement

With blackbeat backbeats

Counting the price of my reward

 

 

David Trudel    ©  2013

 

Post-Op Second Night

Pain curls itself on my chest

In the night

Like a malevolent cat

Ready to sink its claws deep

Into my sternum

And deeper into my lungs

With each cough I fear

To make

Until I remember to call the nurse

Who brings meds

Just in time

 

 

David Trudel     © 2013

 

 

 

Incision

This angry red line will fade

As will the slow burn of transient pain

Becoming a faint memory that I’ll laugh about

Dismissing the whole event as inconsequential

I’ll cavalierly gloss over the memory

Because it will be as forgotten as yesterday’s rain

But part of me will always live here

Remembering the truth of the thin white scar

How it was when it was raw red

When I was as vulnerable as any Old Testament offering

Finding cruel mercy in a scalpel’s edge

Learning that miracles come at a cost

Counted in a currency of suffering

 

 

David Trudel     ©  2013

 

 

Symptoms

Have you experienced any shortness of breath?

 

No, while thinking sure

Every time a beautiful woman looks in my general direction

I’ve had my breath taken away enough

Enough to keep life interesting

 

I’ll take that as a no, he says

After my recitation of the home gym, walks and bike rides

 

Now I wonder

My fingertips seemed colder in those new gloves last winter

Was that a sign

Perhaps

Maybe there’s a bunch of shit I can blame on the faulty pump

Post op, that is

 

After that waking up moment

Through queasy fog

Time splinters rustling like wind chimes

Into the coming to in recovery

Where you realize you have more lines running into

And out of your body than there are lines on a gaff-rigged schooner

Pain, an explosion swaddled for now by morphine

Or something

But there

There, coiled like some viper biding their time

In the center of your chest

Through the haze you realize the battle has begun

So you deploy relentless optimism

Against enervated ennui

Every kind of discomfort imaginable

Until it gets better

Which it will and does

In time

 

 

David Trudel   ©  2013

 

 

Trauma

Branch snapped

Ladder went sideways

Then down

Time slowed

Pain exploded

 

Consciousness separated from body

 

Accepted experience

Felt each screaming nerve

Neural pathways commuter crowded

Acceptance cushions shock

 

Screaming sirens

Sweet sounds for the wounded

Gurney bound

Ride was sweet

 

Hospital staff show empathy through efficiency

In pain, found trust

Shed fear of the unknown

Reality takes away the hyperbole of the imagination

 

One instant

Ripples into future states

Immediately changing

Everything

 

 

David Trudel   ©  2013

 

 

Ward

I awoke to the nurse poking

Prodding

She noticed I was at least somewhat awake

On a scale of 1 to 10

She said

How’s the pain

I felt like saying I don’t do numbers

I’m not a fucking accountant

It just hurts

Settled on 9

Which she wrote down on her chart

Oh, a chart

I recognized that

She loomed into view

You’ve had a shock

No fucking kidding dear

The meds will help

Here’s the call button

As it faded into translucent grey

 

 

David Trudel  ©  2012