St. Paul

with soft soled scuffing down long halls
of ancient linoleum
over cracked and splitting lines
they stream past in soft pastels
with their disinfected smiles

I sit wringing my wrists
against the plastic placard in my hand
wondering if it will hurt this time
if it will work this time

the room is silent
sterile
they have moved it down the hall
but it is much the same
a table covered in white paper
as white as paper cranes
with stirrups that never ride anywhere
with my knees up in the air

I disrobe quietly as the nurse
busies herself with tubes and little vials
of treatment bought wholesale for times like this
I can hear the doctor in the authority of textbooks
speaking quickly in the back room
in a long diatribe of prescription and diagnosis
to a panel of white coats and greying hair

she leans over me
implements in hand
gentle smile in place
she tells me to scoot up a little closer
now breathe in
now breath out
just a little pinch
keep breathing

and its done
see that wasn't so bad
and it repeats
over and over again
day after week
week after month
maybe for the rest of my life

every time I walk down the cheerfully painted halls
covering up nearly a century of illness and habitied nuns
I pass the Pope staring at me,
with disapproving eyes
and a near-sneer upon his lips,
from his gilded golden frame
outside the wooden room
where I see the truly mournful
crouch over softly uttered prayers

as I make my way to the archaic creaking elevator
with a secret pain deeply hidden in my body
I fear not painful death like those humped over
the priest's soft words
spoken before uncomfortable chairs
and doubled-over bodies

I fear instead pain for endlessly stretching days
I fear this uncomfortable feeling between my legs
this uncomfortable walk through these sterile halls
I fear never letting someone enter me again
who doesn't have a needle in her hand
and a relenting worried smile on her face
I fear the day they tell me it will not get better

and once outside I let the wind take my hair
I let the pain settle inside me
I watch the trees sway to rust coloured bricks
and oblivious faces streaming past
the girl with unwashed hair
and pale ghost-like skin
just outside the hospital door
with a cigarette in her hand
huddled next to her I.V. tower
Cinderella coughing up bile in a blue robe

I turn from her
pull my collar close to my cheeks
allow myself to be swallowed by the moving throng
of glassy eyes
and bodies pretending at health
and I follow the wind home
with visions of immortal nuns in my head
with careful smiles upon their faces
and careful needles in their hands
forever floating before my open legs