Just Write For U

B eep…Beep…Beep… I listen to the rhythmic sound of relief and success. A smile of pure reprieve breaks out under my face-mask as I feel my heart continue to shoot adrenaline through my veins like bullets. Amidst the noise in my head and the cheers in the operating room, I hear myself whisper, “thank you.”   I turn to the nurses on my team. “You can wheel Mr. Garrett to recovery,” I release a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. I lift a still shaking hand and wipe a damp strand of dark hair off my forehead with the back of my gloved wrist. With tears gathering in the back of my eyes, I whisper, “He’s going to be all right.”             In surgery, there’s a thin line between success and failure that it is barely visible. As a practicing surgeon for thirteen years, I find that I dance on that line often. Too often. Nearly twenty minutes ago, I thought I crossed it when Tom Garrett went into cardiac arrest almost immediately after a complicated brain surgery. I happened t

Living in a world of silence would be unbearable, So we can’t stop hearing. Life comes alive through our eyes, So we can’t stop seeing. But, A world with excruciating numbness must be preferable Because it seems to be too easy to turn off our feelings. Watching homicides, bombings, kidnappings, Casually flipping through the channels on our TVs. Barely pausing to think,  We deepen the crease in our brows saying,  "That's terrible. I'm so sorry." The last two words spoken as our eyes wander back to our activities. We shed our sensitivities like dead, brittle leaves from autumn trees. When was the last time you gave something a second thought, Or laughed so hard, your sides ached, Or cried yourself dry. When has something in the world angered you so deeply  You did something about it. What will it take to move us slightly, To outrage us, to confound us, To wind us so tightly We will lift ourselves out of the comatose slumbers

           T he silence was like quicksand; I was scared that if I moved, or even breathed too deeply, it would drag me to my grave. Looking around the room that was the approximate size and shape of a large prison cell, I couldn’t help but stiffen. The space was bathed in a cheap, yellow lighting that made the tacky, wannabe cheerful, sunny wallpaper seem even more nauseating. There were three brown, polyester armchairs surrounding a small, rickety coffee table. On it stood what looked like a Mother’s Day gift a three-year-old might come home with from pre-school trying to pass for a decorative plant. It was all a flimsy façade, attempting to deny the real purpose for this room, to mask the devastation that hides behind the big, steel doors. The real reason anyone would willingly choose to be sitting here.   They called it The Waiting Room. Simple and to the point. The room where the sweating, pacing boy waits to be told he is a father. The room where the older couple waits to be t

Performers, actors Players and backstabbers They are persuasive and seductive Fondling your mind They'll lure you and trap you With their subliminal suggestions And provocative rhymes Draped in captivating red And decorated with diamonds They hide daggers inside their sleeves Dripping with superficiality and authenticity Deceit and decency Loathing and love Raging with burning passion Flooded with desire Inciting flaming intimacy And blazing voracity Like kindling to a fire They undress pride with a syllable Strip away secrets with a vowel Baring souls And leaving hearts exposed Whispered with all the subtlety  Of a flirtatious smile Or screamed with all the intensity  Of a fierce eruption Masters of illusion Artists Painting worlds that cannot be touched With a humble parting of the lips Releasing sprays of bullets that gush Like wintry showers Leaving the world cold and slippery

Every drawing is an illusion Appearing to contain depth To be genuine But come too close and you’ll fathom It’s nothing more than a flat illustration Sitting on an 8 by 11 Limited to a world in the second dimension .1 millimeters is apparently not deep enough To reach for a long-lost memory To stretch for a time yet to be Bound to an eternal present Paper-thin people Stuck inside a four-cornered border Machine-cut No room for error For messy mistakes Flat images, shallow minds, lacking depth What you see is all that you can ever hope to get No hidden sides No turned faces No secrets stashed away in dark places No questions desired to be answered No deeper meanings hidden within ambiguous words No thoughts beyond the surface No wondering whether life has a purpose Immersed in a world of superficiality Speaking cheap words Spewing artificiality Charcoal caricatures, focused on the trivial Percepti

IN and out…In and out. She commands her little lungs to breathe as she lay in a heaping pile in a dark, abandoned alley in the depths of Detroit, Michigan. The air is dense with the stench of old urine and whiskey. Crushed beer cans and yellowed newspapers cover the streets, carried through the air by the harsh December winds. She lay with her back against the concrete. Her jeans are gathered around her ankles and the backs of her thin, naked legs scour the cold, abrasive pavement. Her hair is matted with sweat and tears and is clinging to her face like a spider’s web. Although she can’t lift her arms to feel it, she knows there is blood dripping from the cut of her busted bottom lip. The broken bones in her ribs don’t allow her to even roll over when she begins to heave. Now, covered in vomit, she starts choking between sobs and screams.  “Help! Please help me!” she shrieks as loudly as her raw throat allows. “I need help!”  Suddenly, her green eyes grow wide with horror