NICU

They made a bad mistake. To show me all the dank and distorted screams of nursing homes. Then the disconnected child like whimpering brains of blundered soldiers down at the VA. All the nursing instructors who 'trained me" to "talk less, and do more". You all ****ed up! Not cause you taught me to save my tears for midnight text books, on home bound trains. No No. You never prepared me for this. After all the aching and numbing You placed me on the maternity ward.You Let me read the file of a junkie.. A woman.. A mother! Then you let me see her feeding her baby that last bottle . Baby M. Turned over the system. On the same day they cut off her morphine drip. No more addicts umbilical cord for from momma to baby. The true mistake... was to then pool her into my baron arms. Such hungry sweet love. Sobering love! With nowhere to go, but to rock with me to the radio while "Breakfast club" theme song played. Why did I whisper to her to little pink cap " don't you, don't you forget about me" I told this sleepy blank slate. "I used to dance to this song,on 80's nights at this club. With my blue hair and all my piercings! would you believe it" But The music faded out. The sweetest slow dance I barely had. Why did they show me the short, the infinite. There are a million ways to stall against grief. But none that will prepare you for the instinct of love.