The Guinea Pig Poet

Match-made

2011-01-22T17:19:00.000-08:00

It used to be a tradition
involving trays of coffee and desserts,
a shy, obsequious girl on display
and the chinking weight of gold.

I hid somewhere among
exploding stars and raging seas
waiting to be found.
Now the planets are aligning
but my heart isn't.

Its a winged creature
with a mind of its own
spoilt by too many dreams,
and Prince Charming looks nothing
like this. Except for the stars.
They, apparently, approve.

2011-01-10T04:11:00.000-08:00

I’m overwhelmed, asphyxiated by
words ricocheting in my head. Their clamor
is like the primate section of a zoo on a
midsummer weekend, except it intensifies
after the sun goes down. No banana for you,
I think to myself.

Their risqué mating rituals form thoughts,
paint illusions on a caffeine-starved mind
too tired to bother looking for reality. Too tired
to be a bulwark against the words, really.

Tonight, I let the ink spill onto paper,
words that resemble rorscharch paintings
in syntax and form. Yet the words are there,
whispering,
out of control,
catcalling,
inviting a cataclysm.

So glad I'm on vacation.

2010-04-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Ah. This month is solely to remind me how much I dislike outpatient medicine. I'm in the pediatric urgent care clinic - its driving me crazy. Half the time it feels like punishment for having had a wonderful time last month with Cardiology. The heart is beginning to make more and more sense, and all I really need to do is sit down and read some more to fall completely in love with the heart.
I've always liked the heart, but now its pulchritudinous. I'm in danger of wanting to do a fellowship. Uh-oh.
I love pediatrics more than I like medicine, the balance is tilted, but I prefer well-child care to doing urgent care. The one good thing I can think about is that I'm learning to document concisely. Sigh. You think I would have learnt that by now!
Not ready to be a senior yet, not ready to supervise an intern or student on my own, but I don't have intern-itis yet. I find the inpatient floors more intriguing, more interesting even if I have to pry myself out of bed at the unholy hour of 5AM. Even if there are a multitude of things I don't have time for, its still a rewarding experience. I'm still in that phase of liking heroic medicine, so to speak. I don't like the mundane bunch of rashes and snotty noses I'm seeing, even though they come attached to the cutest beings toddling around on the planet.
Oh well. I'll figure it out. Eventually.

A Letter to Someone's Children

2010-03-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

It is my regretful endeavour
to inform you
Mrs. Rose K
must die.
That, somehow,
you must find the strength
to listen to her, let her go.
The funeral must be planned,
the casket satin inlaid.
Her Grandchildren must be sung to sleep
every night as usual.
You will point to a star
older than life itself
and tell the children
it is Grandma,
and the baby will learn
that she was the tooth fairy.
Flowers must be bought
and you will return to your goth days
to wear black this weekend,
and share wet smiles with yourself
at JC Penney's
in the dressing room mirror -
Oh how she grounded you when she found
black lipstick in your purse
covered in a condom.
You may now leave the house
and not worry
that she will be dead when you return
because she won't be there.

But I will give you tonight
to rant and rave
and call me a tryant
because I killed your mother.

Signed,
the Inept Intern.

Six months later... I still love life

2010-03-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Ah. The gorgeousness of winter is passing here in the Sunny City. That sentence would have been irony, except that the past week has actually been Sunny and pretty. Last week it was snowy, this week it is spring.

I've made friends, lost friends and learnt more in the last six months than the whole five years of med school. I fell in love with babies and watched them grow and beat the odds. I see them in clinic now, and smile every time they show up on my schedule. I see people in my continuity clinic, adults, some of whom picked me because they like my "spunk". We hug at the end of each 20-minute visit. I'm happy, I'm smiling, I love going to work.

I've stopped submitting poems to be published, mainly because I haven’t had time to type up the poems I write. They’re not even sad, they’ve turned more introspective, a questioning of things I have always believed. No, I’m not questioning my faith in the inherent goodness of the world despite having been hurt. I’m finding out that life is a series of checks and balances, and the scales are finely balanced. Always. There is no grief unmatched by joy, no sleepless night unmatched by lazy day. There is no smile that is unreturned, unless you count the infants, but they don’t have to smile all the time to be adorable.

Speaking of infants, I think I’m a happier pediatrician than an internist. Not even kidding. Its amazing how happy I am when I’m around the kids and babies. I still don’t know what I’m doing with a lot of the older children, but the babies make me want to sing. Yes, sing. Despite my dislike of the NICU, a neonatology career is showing up on my horizon of career choices. I’m not impressed by my vacillation on career choices. Not that it was one of the never-choices, but it wasn’t even remotely considered. I thought all the ICU fellowships were at the bottom of the list, but two of them are slowly coming up on my personal ranking hierarchy of choices. And they’re not even that far apart if I think about it. Eeek. I’m turning into a fellowship person, and it scares me. Kidneys and guts remain firmly at the bottom of the list, yessir indeed they do.

My home is still incomplete, unfurnished, but I’ve progressed to calling it “home”. I think I have picked out a couch on craigslist, that beautiful website for the cheapie like me. I’ve picked out two desks, I’m waiting to hear on one before I make up my mind. Either one will make me joyful and better organized. I’m waiting to get my living room organized a little bit before I pick out a dresser for my bedroom. A dresser and a mirror. I’m getting end tables from the dollar store tomorrow.

I went to the lake on Friday, and took a beautiful set of pictures of the sunset. It was a lovely day in the sixties. Dad loved the pictures, I emailed them to him. The new cam is amazing, and I want one of my own. I’m going to save up for an SLR or the same camera I bought for my brother, a Fujifilm Finepix S1500. I also want to buy adobe photoshop and play around with pictures. It is more fulfilling than buying a car at this point. I want the small happinesses of life – is happinesses even a word? Or a neologism?

I’ve been meditating the past few days at night, before I go to bed. There are a lot of realizations I’ve had, and one of the biggest is that I’m actually learning to stop and smell the roses. Live in the moment. Be spontaneous. Offer to help. I’m living for the small joys and it has made me a happier person. I’m happy for every 30 minute workout I squeeze into the week, every time I’m taking the bus instead of cabs. Every night I get six hours of uninterrupted sleep, I’m happy.

I love my parents, and every day I spend here in this country, watching families tear themselves apart, children growing up in incomplete homes, my respect for the gifts I’ve taken for granted rises up out of somewhere deep and chokes me. I laugh with my mother over the phone, hear my father’s oft-spoken pride in the short conversations we have every week. Get my brother’s opinion on everything from furniture to electronics. Buy him stuff. Laugh over in-jokes that no one else will understand. Tell him something and know that he'll understand why its funny or frustrating. I'm blessed, very blessed.

Its beautiful. My life is beautiful. Touché. I love life.

Poetry and the End of vacation

2009-09-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

My 30:30 is going well, over at Splash. There are several of my favorite people on the site have been participating, and the gorgeousness of it all almost had me weeping into my oatmeal this morning. In comparision, my Open Letters pales in prettiness.

Sometimes, I think poems need to be gritty and rough, like driftwood. The poems in Open Letters are meant to reflect that. I like to believe that they fit this hope well enough. At least, I'm not embarassed to share them alongside prettier and more thought provoking poetry from poets who've honed their skills. Seriously, there is even a sonnet. Someone posted a SONNET in a 30:30 - thats the kind of people that make me want to weep for joy.

I posted Open Letters #1 on Poetbay, the response so far has been lukewarm. Part of it may have been the simple fact that I haven't posted there in longer than six months. I think I've outgrown Poetbay, I'm ready to move onto forums and places that challenge me and make me want to write poetry. I'm tired of telling people I love their poetry when really, I don't mean it. I'm tired of offering critique where it isn't welcome and the critique forum is almost a joke. Sure, encouragement IS important, but the same comments over and over again make me gag. Maybe I will go ahead and delete myself from there, and see how I feel about it. The only thing stopping me is the memory of a good friend who passed away and the thought of the few good friends I have made there. But there is always facebook, right?

I think I should go back to the AAP forum or Penshells. What scares me is how easily I can disconnect myself from any place of poetry, how these poetry forums besides Splash don't feel right to me. I can't bring myself to go back and post. It might have to do with the fact that I know that at Splash, I have friends who held my hand through a lot of things. But that isn't an excuse I'm offering myself and whoever else cares enough to read this blog. If anyone besides me reads this, I sure don't know.

Ah the difficult choices I make... haha.

In really exciting news, I received my print copy of the debut issue of Touch: The Journal of Healing. I was published, and they have the first line of my poem as a sort of introduction to the book with a page to itself and my name under it. How awesomely cool is that! This is also the first time I'm holding physical proof that unbiased people like my poetry, and the first time in the past five years that I'm holding a print copy of my poem in my hand. I almost squealed when I picked up the envelope today.

Vacation is almost over and I think I'm ready to go back to work. I'm starting on the peds inpatient service, a sudden change to my schedule. I don't mind the change, but I'm scared. And nervous. And terrified that when I have to draw blood, I'll completely fail and burst into tears. Hopefully, though, I will be better than that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Sunshine and smiles, atleast while the sunshine lasts!

2009-09-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

I started a 30:30 on Splash. It was surprisingly easy to take charge and lead. I'm not a take charge person most of the time, I'm content to let others take charge and hand me a responsibility - I'll take charge of that. But this time, I started something and so far, I have two well-standing people on my list.

I was thinking about it this morning. In my chosen career, I will end up taking charge of people's lives. Asking them to change their lifestyles to suit their health. Basically, I'll be taking charge of their lives in a big way, though we'll pretend that they did it. I'm actually already doing that, now that I try to be objective about it.

In other news, my brother now has a blog. My decidedly non-literary, non-journaling, non-writing brother. Its got to be the joke of a lifetime, even if he never updates it again. Now that hes got at least one legitimate post, I can tease him about it the rest of his life. Hahahaha. I love you, bro.

I started a series of poems called Open Letters. It is, as the title suggests, a series of letters to people who either have been or are a part of my life. I don't know how many of them will recognise themselves or others that these letters are addressed to. I dont know that any of them will even read these letters. But I'm writing them for myself, imagining myself telling these people some of my thoughts about them.

I'll post the collection here later, some day when I have nothing to blog about.

:)
me.

2009-09-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

I am currently on vacation.
Vacation - three syllables that stand for luxury and daredevil traveling and all that. Despite my love of travelling, I am currently spending my first ever vacation from work at home in my apartment.
A lot has happened since that journal entry on 6/6/09. I got my visa, I came to the US, I started residency, and am currently three months into my intern year. I started making myself a scarf, read a few good books, got a new computer (courtesy of my wonderful wonderful parents), a pretty new phone and an apartment I love.
In the past three months, I also splurged on a new bed - I spent a ridiculous amount of money on this beautiful beautiful bed I absolutely love. Thats the brief update... haha.

I haven't written any poetry in over three months. I haven't found any new music in this period either. I haven't managed to buy all the things I need for my apartment. I havent managed to get my license, or a car for that matter. **shrugs**

I have learned, though, that I love being where I am. I love working with people. There are any number of moments that I don't want to be around people anymore, and I'd give almost anything to be curled up in bed. But I like the people I'm working with, they're genuine and I think we're developing happy bonds.
I have also learned that it is a fine thing to dream, but it is a finer thing yet to be able to fulfil those dreams by myself. Yes, there are loan repayments. Yes there are a million things I can complain about. At the same time, I am finding myself a calmer and more fulfilled person when I go to bed at night, and to me, that is all that matters.

Huggiez,
memememememe.

6.6.09 - journal entry

2009-06-06T22:51:00.000-07:00

tomorrow,
i shall burst into a million dewdrops
on a thousand rosebuds.
will that slake your thirst
or will you leave, smiling,
sated by the shimmering rainbows
in my being?

tonight,
i am myself,
a bumblebee on a chrysanthemum,
jolly in my solitude
and cozy in a flower.
i lean on the night a minute,
wishing to be here for a while longer.

The Paperwork Demon

2009-03-23T23:32:00.000-07:00

So the Match is over and I Matched to a program I loved since I interviewed there. I am headed to MetroHealth in Cleveland for a four-year combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics residency. I spent two days dazed and incomprehending, then the paperwork demon appeared and brought me back to reality. Like crash-landed me into reality, that I have less than a week to complete as much pen-pushing I can.

I am surrounded and inundated with the white stuff. Its stacked in piles and piles around my room - notes, books, papers, folders, more notes, notices, bills, booklets, pocketbooks, takeout menus - you get the idea. As I'm sitting on the floor on the one corner that is scrupulously paper-free, it strikes me that I'm upto my eyeballs in paper.

I am headed Home in less than two weeks time, and the sheer amount of the ragged paperwork I'm facing is staggering. I just spent three hours figuring out loan repayment schedules and realizing that yes, I am going to be forking over more than half my monthly income in loan repayments alone. While it means that when I finish residency I will be free of atleast one loan, it also crushes my dream of making it back to college - yes, I said college - for that long-sought degree in creative writing. Well, there is still the online classes option, I guess.

Meanwhile, the exercise in numbers reminded me of why I chose a career where the only math skillz I'm going to need are those that can be adequately performed on a standard four-function calculator. I am not fit company when I'm accounting for a huge monthly outgo relative to a small-ish monthly income. Yes, the numbers are still swirling around my head.

Once the number job gets approved, I can graduate. Its been like pulling teeth so far, what with people being to busy to tell me things in advance and then suddenly pulling it out as an obstacle. I feel like I'm running in one spot, unable to surmount this numbered hurdle.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can get atleast something moving at some end, I can get some more printouts and mail out some stuff that has been waiting for ages, including one Christmas present. Wheeeee.

Meanwhile I'm going to watch CSI: Miami online for the third night in a row until my brain lets me fall asleep. My insomnia is back in full force - I haven't slept two whole nights. Hopefully, tonight will be better.

The excited ramble, I guess

2009-02-27T06:39:00.000-08:00

The rank order list submission deadline was on Feb 25. Now I'm counting down to Match Day, and I have butterflies and other pretty crawlies in my belly. They're growing bigger and bigger and eating more and more, and hence I will not gain any weight from all the brownies and cookies I'm eating.

Not being allowed to cook also severely limits my culinary variety, so dinner is mostly unhealthy - noodles, ready to eat food, noodles, cookies and milk, occasionally oatmeal and/or cereal, noodles, etc. I have three different kinds of noodles in my room, and that is sad. I suppose I could spend more money at the hospital for dinner, but a salad (>60% lettuce - dosen't that make you feel all rabbitty)costs more than 5$, and I'm heartily sick and tired of grilled cheese sandwiches, "oriental" vegetables and boiled green beans. Not to mention white bread.

I'm just getting over my poetry slump, I wrote one that was well-received over on Splash and that makes me happy. I'm also reading more poems. Not one the workshops, since the hospital computers won't let me access the workshops and the internet at home is pretty unreliable, but published poems, prize-winning poems, poems that take me away from the eventful environment of the not-too-ill into living rooms strange yet familiar, a silent kinship under the skin.

I recently had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Thomas Duffy (yep, the guy who discovered the Duffy antigens, for anyone who understands) talk about the arts in medicine, and poetry in medicine. He could have been talking only to me. Some of the more "grounded" medical students with me were like "What the hell is he talking about?", but I loved it. I love hearing that there are people who do both medicine and poetry and balance them out.

After the 11th, when I walk into a patient's room, I won't introduce myself as a medical student anymore. More likely, I will have a medical student with me whom I will introduce. I will add a doctor before my last name, and fewer patients will know my first name. I will add an MD behind my name, and we all shall be proud. I might also be scared or nervous as I wait for the 19th, Match Day. I do hope I will Match at the program I loved interviewing at.

I'm flying back to Chicago next week. I get to go back and steal hugs from my favorite two-year old, and do a whole lot of shopping. I love shopping, and I have a list of things I have to get before I fly home. Like buy a crazy amount of chocolates. Like a really crazy amount - its embarrassing how much chocolate I'm going to have to buy in the next couple of weeks.

Hershey store, are you listening? I'm coming your way!

Does anyone know if Coldstone has ice-cream that I can carry home to the heat of the Indian summer? :P

Exciting News Blog

2009-02-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

SO remember how I wanted to be a doctor as far back as I can remember? Yeah. I'm starting my last rotation on Thursday, and that runs for four weeks. Then, I get to add a "Dr." before my name and an MD after. Isn't that awesome?

I won't have a graduation ceremony, my school isn't having one. I'm so exhausted from all the interviews and travelling and the non-stop working, running, moving, studying, that all I want to do is to go home. So it all works out and yes, I'm flying home on April 3. Yay. I booked my flight on sunday.

Speaking of interviews - I have been thinking long and hard about my rank order list for residency, and I sort of have it figured out. Thats a secret. The results will be out on March 19, just after I'm hoping to receive my MD from my school. Whheeee.

I finish that last rotation on March 11 and I'm flying back to Chicago the next day. Tonight and tomorrow, I'm going to be packing. Just throwing stuff into suitcases and a duffel bag. Aaaaaaaa.

I'm too happy and exhausted to type out my thoughts in order. But my joys are so interconnected, it is sort of hard to pull them apart and figure out what comes first. Am excited for the next couple of months.

Poem

2008-12-27T20:35:00.000-08:00

I have no fingers to feel with,
no one to reach out for.
My breath comes in little wisps,
pale ghosts telling me
I'm alive.
In the twilight darkness,
my mind is hypaethral,
perhaps even transparent.

Quis operor sequor?
Est is sententia
vel est is flumen in suus tractus??

Lacuna es decessio mihi.
English est haud diutius meus castrum.

(What do I follow?
Is it thought
or is it a river in its course?

The words are leaving me.
English is no longer my forte.)

Poem

2008-12-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

Lights sparkle, fiery and hazy
in lukewarm water jets
pounding my numb skin.
A taste of being almost home.

Back when I was little
and a bath
involved
me and one of my parents,
in a bathroom
filled
with bright plastic buckets,
I'd close my eyes
and enjoy the feel of water
pouring over my face,
warm and caressing.

I didn't know then
what it meant -
I am just beginning
to understand the real meaning
of home.

When the simple sensation
of water coursing down my face
and washing away tears
feels like a caress from all those years ago.

When I can almost smell
the flavors
in my mother's kitchen -
fresh coriander,
tamarind,
freshly-grated tender coconut
for festivals
I can no longer track.

When I dance on the edge
baring my heart
for strangers to read,
trying to find a niche
I can hide in.

When all I want is my freedom
and a kiss, maybe a hug -
so badly that it almost hurts.

Snow, windiness and a rant about terrorism

2008-12-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

I WON NANOWRIMO 2008!

Yes, I wrote a very bad 50,558 word novel in 30 days. Well, I wrote about 30000 in the last five days, but who cares so long as I finished in time to earn my brown winner's badge (look on the right... its there, I promise)!

Its been snowing the last couple of nights, and since yesterday there has been this pretty layer of untouched, inch-deep powdery snow everywhere. Its a beautiful winter wonderland. I love winter, snow, and everything else about winter. Watching snowflakes falling, floating down slowly, dancing on the wings of the wind, soothes and calms my mind no matter how often I see it. Even if I'm on the street and it snows, I love it.

I'm not even from a snowy place - my hometown dosen't even have a proper winter. The only way you can tell its winter is that you aren't sweating when you wake up. So I don't know if it is the mutant gene that made me go into medicine that also makes me love winter.

I was sick on Thanksgiving day - I had a migraine, I threw up twice, lots of fun. Then, I heard about the attacks in Mumbai. Eeek. Mumbai. My hometown. YIKES.

Thank God my family is okay, they arent hurt or anything. But seriously, who creates the indoctrination that killing is right? For any reason? How insane does someone have to believe that doctrine? How heartless do you have to be to knowingly orphan a child? How freakin insane do you have to be to torture a human being - a person - to death?

What ideology, what holy grail could possibly inspire young people to kill and be killed in such a bloody manner? What sort of faith is it that teaches its followers that they would go to heaven for killing others? There wasn't even injustice involved - these don't seem to be revenge killings - I mean, look at the destruction, the bloody remains, the indiscriminate shootings at CST.

Mumbai is resilient, and we're all sick of the repetition that we hope will aid the recovery of this beautiful, historical, wonderful, warm city by the sea. But how do you deal with wounds that scar the psyche of a people?

Seven years ago, I sat transfixed as I watched the twin towers fall in New York. I couldn't believe my eyes, I couldn't believe that one of the places on my must-see-before-I-die list was no more. Seven days ago, I sat horrified as images of my burning city, my wounded hometown, my bleeding people streamed in front of my eyes live on my computer. And I couldn't believe that this was happening. Both times, I was equally sickened by the loss of life. This time, it was the horror that this is home.

We will heal, somehow. We will move on. But the horror will remain. Forever.

I am medicine because I have this lofty dream that I want to change lives for the better. I want at least one life to be better because I touched it. I want to be heroic and save a life. Several lives. This loss of life saddens me. The perpetrators are probably not the ones who died. They will just come up with more of these brainwashed victims and have them believe that they have "seen the way, seen the light." But these young men who held a city to ransom are not much older than I am, they seemed to have been educated, handsome young men who might have had successful lives. What went wrong, what flicked the wrong switch, is something we might never find out. It grieves me that I, who is training to change lives, am powerless to stop the horror touching my own.

NaNoWriMo! and some other things

2008-11-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh November. Glorious fall colors are alive all around, and winter is creeping in one finger at a time. I *heart* fall in the midwest, even if it makes my nose itch and my eyes red so no matter how much my feet itch to go out I stubbornly stay home.

My most recent attempt to get off Zyrtec was pretty disastrous - I ended up with an itchy, runny nose paired with psychopath-red eyes. My insomnia might have contributed to the red eyes, which thankfully didnt hurt or itch.

So November is National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo, and being the absolutely crazy person that I am, I am participating. I very wisely told a lot of people about it, so now I am working on that 50000-word novel. The target, for those who don't understand, is to complete a 50000 word novel in any genre any story in thirty days, from Nov 1 to Nov 30. Check out the Nanowrimo website, its a cool place. I'm an official participant.

I started off okay, then three days in my story dried up, the words wouldn't come any more. 1700 words a day is a huge word belch for me. But then I switched stories, a random seed, and my chatterbox gene came alive a couple of days ago so I powered up Potential Novel No.2 from 500 words to 10900 as of right now. It is really weird because I have been waking up at 4 without needing an alarm for the last couple of mornings to write uninterrupted for two hours before hitching on the all's-perfect-with-my-world mask and leaving for the hospital. I'm currently doing a full-time elective in Pediatric Cardiology, so I'm also reading and researching for that. I am getting more comfortable with reading EKG's, which is good. I'm also picking up murmurs and the differences between the different kinds of murmurs, that is encouraging. All the earphone listening hasnt damaged my hearing, apparently. That is definitely good news.

I've been hitting atleast 1500 words on my morning word belches over the last couple of days, which is great for me. My personal target is 15000 words by tomorrow morning, since I have to devote a couple hours to grocery shopping and shopping for other essentials, such as toilet paper, today. I'm completely out of stock and eating at Au Bon Pain (which is where I'm posting this from - I'm here for the free wi-fi and a change of scene - and for lunch, because I have no food except dry saltine crackers at home) is pretty damn expensive on my strained student budget.

I attended peds cardio clinic today where I saw a three year-old girl with an irregular heartbeat (she has nothing to worry about - she is fine). I was playing and interacting with the busy, curious little kiddie while gathering information from the mother and grandmother about the history, and it was surprisingly easy to handle. The kid was entranced by my stethoscope, and she wanted to play with it, so I gave to her for a couple of minutes while I scribbled my notes and kept asking grandma questions. I let her listen to her own heart, then mine, (she liked my heart better because I was only wearing a single shirt while she was wearing three layers of clothes). I demanded her breakfast cereal from her, because she was my friend and we were supposed to share everything, and it made her laugh because it was in her belly already... It was a fun interaction with the family.

All this joy in less than seven minutes (I blame the step 2 CS for my obsessive timing of clinical encounters), during which I completed my note as well. I have a natural organizing system in my head, a pretty useful tool for presentation. As I offered my opinion to Mom and grandma (with the understanding that my verdict is not yet gold, just a feather yet) along with reassurance that my "friend" was completely fine, grandma asked me a question out of the blue: "Are you going into pediatrics sweetie?"
I just smiled and nodded, while she continued, "I hope you are, darling, we need more pediatricians like you. This is the first time *** has come to a doctor's visit and not cried - she is actually laughing and playing, when it is usually the other way around. God bless you!"
I didn't know what to say, so I just thanked her and ducked out to get my attending, I was pleased and embarrassed. My assessment was pretty much correct and reaffirmed, and the family left with another "God bless you!"

This is one of the first times that I have been so completely comfortable handling a family on my own, though it isn't the first time I have been told I am good with kids. It made my day and lifted my spirits to hear the lady's words, because it reaffirms that I've made the right decision to devote my life to working with children and their parents.

In my last post where I revealed six embarrassing things about myself, I said that I am not comfortable with people, and kids terrify me. It is true that I am an introvert and by extension, I am extremely uncomfortable with being in the spotlight. But I am good with patients and families, and I have an issue with constantly underestimating myself. My fear of interacting with kids comes from my childhood with several cousins younger than I - they all cried as soon as I entered the room they were in, but they would gurgle and coo and babble with my brother. Their mothers would think I was doing something to their babies, and I often got scolded/chastised for "scaring" them. Needless to say, it made me jealous, and left this lasting belief that I am not good with kids. The things you learn about yourself in med school... seem to be varied and interesting. My reluctance to be around people stems from my nerdy and bookish interests, none of which were common in the environment I grew up in. Sure, my mother shares my love of poetry, but she is my mother, not my classmate. Trying to explain the intricacies of iambs and meter and why writing haiku or sonnets is fun to my friends was a waste of energy and dignity, so I ended up being everyone's friend and no one was truly, really mine. Now, I have a voracious appetite for peopling. Having been denied for so many years, medicine is a banquet for my human-starved writing, and a lot of people find their way into my poems and words.

This has been an incredibly long, incredibly random post. I'm amazed at my wordiness considering I've crossed 2000 words on my NaNo today, plus all the other's I've written and spoken, and there are more bubbling up in my head that I am trying to catch.

Today, life is good.

Six Unspectacular Things About Myself

2008-11-09T03:32:00.001-08:00

Brenda tagged me to reveal six embarrassing things about myself.

1. I cannot wake up in the morning - I think 8 am is early, but I manage to kick myself out of bed by 6:30 during the week. Don't ask me how.

2. I read/write poetry during study time.

3. I cannot sit still in a classroom atmosphere - I zone out, write poetry/stories/journal entries. I'm still able to answer questions and participate in intellectual discussions - no idea how. My multitasking talents are honed to perfection, I guess.

4. I abhor paperwork, but I am entering a profession where it is the be-all end-all. God save my soul.

5. I am not comfortable dealing with other people's kids. Or with people, period. I'm going into Pediatrics. Yikes.

6. I don't have a single picture from a single birthday since my second one. Even though I celebrated some of them.

Terms & conditions!

1. link the person who tagged you: Brenda
2. mention the rules on your blog: (these are them).
3. list 6 unspectacular things about you: (see above)
4. tag 6 other bloggers by linking them: Brenda, do you honestly think I read blogs other than yours? Yikes.

Wishful

2008-10-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

Its a crazy month, stressful and exciting. I love it and hate it, all the guessing. Waiting for residency interviews is nailbiting-scary. And I stopped biting my nails in 1996.

The worst are the would-be-friendly rejection letters, because each of the programs I applied to have been carefully chosen. Of course, I have my step 1 score to thank for the showing so far, and I should get more starting Nov, once the MSPE's are released to programs. I think my MSPE looks good enough to garner me a few interviews more.

Its disconcerting to hear others say things like they have 15-20 interviews already - jeez. You popular, ideal doctor, go away from my life. Really. Stop making me feel inadequate already!

I want to get a good residency; I want it so bad it hurts sometimes. I want to be free of worrying! This whole process is going to drag on for six months, right until March. ITS TOO DAMN LONG!!!

Coelomic Musings 3

2008-08-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

{One of a series of poems from the hospital}

My thoughts are imprisoned
outside the window
like moths trying to get in
to burn themselves at the altar
of your bedside reading lamp.

I sit with you,
my body a question mark
dangling on a chair,
you a semicolon curled
in paralysis.
Together we watch
technicolor miracles - a red-blazered witch
speaks of deaths, lives, money.

The quiet ticking of the clock
becomes too loud and long
from eon to eon.
I hallucinate about endless sea,
open cloud and free wind.

Freshly mown grass
and new delivered button roses
offer a moment's glimpse
at Life as we both once knew it.

Your grateful touch
brings my skewered perception
to book, the razor-edge of death
is walkable again.

I dont need caffeine anymore

Compressed three month Blog

2008-08-22T18:33:00.000-07:00

It has been such a crazy time since I last posted here. I've moved from friend's place to a pretty condo in suburban Chicago to sharing an apartment with three other girls and calling a room the size of a closet my own. Of course, this claustrophobia-inducing room is temporary until I can find better accomodations.

I took both CK and CS in two consecutive weeks at the end of July and the beginning of August. I just finished celebrating the results for my CK, which I passed, IMO, with flying colors. With my QBank scores swinging between 60 and 75 all the time, my score surprised the heck out of me, considering all the craziness that the past three months of my life have been.

My parents asked me to buy myself a gift, and because I am a nerd, I'm thinking about getting myself a booklight... haha. Nerds FTW.

Met up with a bunch of classmates and schoolmates the other day after a long time, I hadn't seen some of them in over two years. And it was fun. Its nice to meet up with people who understand that unique situation I am in.

On the flip side, my rotations in CT aren't happening. Not exactly sure where the goofus happened, but it did and now I'm stuck without rotations.

That may be a good thing because I want to go into Pediatrics (YES! I finally made a choice!) and neither of those were pediatric rotations; so that leaves me free to do a slew of pediatric rotations for my electives. I'm working my a** off to get rotations here in Chicago, this is where I want to live and work. I might decide to do a Sub-internship in Internal Medicine both because it is a school requirement and because it will keep me from being idle and tearing out my hair while waiting for my pediatric electives to be scheduled.

You heard that right, I said I want to go into Pediatrics. Yay for words coming back to haunt me... and premature declarations.

I'm also trying to finish my scary-looking paperwork for the residency application process. It is so scary.... I hate paperwork and I've been told many times that I am in the wrong field for the amount of hate for that particular item... Sigh. I suppose it is the rule of balance.

I've also been calling programs and doctors in practice to see if I could do rotations with them; I've exhausted the minutes on my phone... hahaha. And I'm still sitting on my ass. This is doubly hard on me because I'm not a people person at all, and it makes me cranky and insociable. I turn into a cave being. Completely... except for the fact that I wear clothes... I don't feel like talking to anyone after those crazy, long days. I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE ANYMORE! (I happened to mention this to my mother the other night when she had called - and she laughed. Obviously, there are exceptions - I do always want to talk to my parents and certain friends)

Yesterday I went to the clinic so someone could stick me with a needle and draw three huge tubes of blood from my arm, and get a complete physical; today I had a chest x-ray. That concludes the medical portion of the programme - it is the the last bunch of tests I'll need before I graduate, hopefully. Results on Tuesday!

For all the rollercoaster that I've been on since mid-May, I am a stronger and saner person today. I've noticed my priorities have changed a lot... though I'm still not a people person. I'm learning to focus on the big picture. I'm trying to hone my sense of humor... apparently, I developed one when I wasn't looking. I've also made friends - some of whom will be permanent sparklers.

And Big hugs for everyone that sent out prayers, good wishes and encouragement. I love you all!

To Do List

2008-05-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

1. Study for Step 2
2. Reschedule CS to somewhere in August/early Sept
3. Figure out electives
4. Work out schedule for electives
5. Catch up on email
6. Remember: Coffee is not a meal, even if it is a latte
7. Eat. eat. eAt. EaT. Atleast tid.
8. Do not stress out.
9. Write 1000 words/day.
10. Study for Step 2
11. Do not start novel/ebook.
12. PRAY
13. Stay sane
14. Get chocolate!

Random observations and Writing

2008-05-23T20:57:00.001-07:00

So I'm moving... again. To Chicago. Yay me!

I've spent the last three days culling and packing and sorting and folding and sitting on my suitcase to close it and unpacking and repacking and stopping short of tearing my hair out. Mind, I washed my hair on thursday morning and did not comb it or brush it for the rest of the day so it looks like I;ve been tearing it out.

I'm bunking with a friend, I'm really looking fwd to seeing her again. I like to think we're pretty close. Its very generous of her to open up her house to me. So thanks!

Step 2 is kicking my a**, and I'm determined to win. Its been a very ugly, one-sided battle so far and I haven't been on the winning side even once. I haven't done anything that has any relation to medicine since sunday, and I have a feeling I'm going to pay. So yeah, I'm going to have to spend next week playing catch-up.

Thats next week - which officially does not start until Sunday. So I'm going to take my time off and enjoy it - enjoy every minute of it. Take time to relax, heal and write. Maybe I'll get around to writing that novel I never really gave up on. Maybe it'll make my studying better, improve my focus. So by June 27, I should really have about 30000 words written.

Wish me luck!

Age

2008-05-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

Gnarled fingers touching, soothing,
bringing back to life the
pleasantness of all that is spring,
youth and content.
Share with me the secret
of life on these windy cliffs
a river carved through a mountain
immemorial times ago.

Let me listen to the rhythm
of your heartbeat,
a genteel murmur – or
is it the water I hear
rushing below us
as we stand together
basking in a spring sunset?

Tell me the stories
that carved each line of you,
etched each curve.
Were they knights
that first fell in love
with your homely scents
or were they warriors
checking their steeds
at the memory
of a stolen first kiss?

Or were they Viking sailors
with blue eyes
and insignificant boats
bobbing on the river
before returning to
the conquering majesty
of their ship, carrying
news of you,
you pink-and-white-robed minstrel?

I stand here and watch
as you sparkle
in the dewy evening,
ensconced in birdsong
and whinnying horses
and the smell of rich soil
awakening around you.

I'm going to zone out

2008-04-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

Here it comes - the end of one miserable rotation. Don't know why, but everything that could possibly go wrong in a single rotation went wrong on this one. I'll be glad to slink out with a low B... I have A's on all my other rotations. Sucks.

Six weeks of OB/Gyn. Not a terror rotation, it was supposed to be fun, dammit. This whole rigmarole should have been a piece of cake, but it turned into something else that will twist up my guts for a longish time.

Never could settle down to find my groove for this rotation, could never get comfortable with the system I was working in. I have a very good attending, but I could not get into a rhythm at all... I've spent the last six weeks constantly off-balance, losing my groove just as I begin settling down. Spending my days in the office constantly wanting to be in the OR - where I fell flat on my face. Literally.

Three times I left the OR halfway through a surgery - first time was a C-section when I almost passed out, second time was last week when I had to throw up (thank you... its called PMS) and today, I officially passed out. Like one moment I'm standing on my feet doing whatever I'm supposed to do and answering questions on anatomy, vaguely aware that I'm too hot and its kind of hard to breathe. The next thing I know is the anesthesiologist is telling me about my vital signs. Sigh.

Talk about reality checks. This wasn't even a particularly bloody surgery, it was this beautiful symphony. And I conked out. Not fair. I've stood scrubbed in for eight hours with a radiology gown on, starving, but in good shape. And 30 minutes into this morning's surgery, I was flat on the OR floor. And it is a reality check because I want to go into surgery.

I know I'm entitled to pass out atleast once as a medical student in the OR. To give them credit, the staff were great and non-judgmental and quick. They walked me to the lounge after I came around, got me breakfast (I'd eaten before coming to the hospital, but they made me eat anyways), ordered me to stay in the lounge, and the anesthesiologist came back to check my vitals again. My attending cut me a break and asked me to go home instead of sticking around for surgery number 2. Maybe that makes me feel worse than I would have felt otherwise, I don't know.

I feel like a screwup of major proportions. That is not even considering the other crap that was going on with my visa extension application and my school and my loan. I did get those sorted out. What I couldn't resolve was that sense of being a misfit throughout the last 5 weeks. Like a square peg in a round hole. I screwed up on my oral presentations because I was sorting out my visa and school issues and the presentations slipped my mind, I made up for that though I have a feeling it took the shine off. It didn't help that we were seeing these women who had these amazing figures and walked in eating sinfully rich ice-cream - and there I was, with the protein drink or whatever, feeling totally fat and whatever.

I'll admit, I'm tired. Mentally definitely, but also physically, especially over the last two weeks. I have never needed more than two cups of coffee a day, I'm up to three. And I'm yawning at 9 pm - I could never sleep before 11 pm unless I was jetlagged. I can totally skip dinner and not even notice it till I wake up in the morning with a growling stomach. I do make a point of having dinner everyday though, even if I eat just fruit and yogurt, I eat.

Bottomline is, I feel like crap. Passing out in the OR this morning just brought it to a head. I don't doubt I'll get a fair evaluation, but it sucks to know I was so ragged I couldn't focus. And it wasn't for lack of trying. Neither could I find my usual enthusiasm this time round.

What I really want is to get drunk and pass out until Monday morning, but since I dont drink, that isnt a viable option, so I'm going to get me a giant slab of chocolate and drown myself in a few pounds of potato chips... And steel myself for tomorrow and the day after, my last two days in this rotation. Friday has never been more welcome.

Words.. and a Favorite Sparkler

2008-01-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

Words - those nifty little creations of intellect. They rhyme, they explode, implode, elevate, embarass, express, soothe, rouse, arouse, calm.
Do I choose my words to define my thought or does the thought choose how it must be defined, from word to image to deed? How does my intellect choose my words to suit my moods? Does one ever get to a level of wisdom when one is immune from saying the wrong words?
My words are mostly poetry. It is how my thoughts arrange themselves.
But tonight, it will not be my words that I choose to start off this new voyage with. It is one of my all-time favorite poems by Al Zolynas, from his book The New Physics:

The Blessing

Lying on my stomach
in the backyard, my eyes
leave War and Peace, skip away
from lives more beautifully broken
than mine, fall on a dewdrop
hung in the shade of a blade of grass in the summer sun.
An insect--a kind of caterpillar--
no larger than a comma approaches,
his body folding and unfolding.
Under my nose, all of Mother Russia
and the drama of an insect and a drop of water.
My insect enters the dewdrop--
simply walks into it,for a few seconds a timeless bug in amber.
He comes out, glistening in the summer air.
The dewdrop remains as before,
pure and clear, a collector of light,
self-contained in its miraculous simplicity. . . .
As if in the old gypsy woman's tent,
after a few predictable cliches
about the future, after
you've paid her a handful of coins
and are rising to leave, she smiles
and passes her hand through the crystal ball.
Lying on my stomach in the grass,
I seem to be looking over my own shoulder,
watching myself watch myself
pass in and out of solid domes
of light, impossibly clear demi-worlds.

I'm a Whiner.

2007-10-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

There are days, and there are days.

Days when I can pour myself into whatever I do from minute to minute. Days when I can start something and know, that it will get finished. Days when I wake up by myself. Days when I almost love myself.

And then days when nothing, absolutely nothing enthuses me. When nothing seems to go right. Days when I can't make the transition from hour to hour, smile to smile. Days when I walk around like a zombie and try to get something done. Days when I wake up with ten minutes to spare. Days when I can't take myself anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing. I love surgery, I love medicine as a whole. I love being able to write.

I spend my days cooped up in a place without sunshine, where I learn how to bring healing and health to people. Suffering with the patients I help take care of is an essential part of me, one that can never die out. I have watched pain in every stage, sorrow that will leave scars and I have felt the cold sweep of affronted Death turned away from the door.

I have stayed up entire nights reading up on stuff, passing from one link to another, one page to another, fascinated by the journey of disease and health, and then trudged my grassflower-kissed path to the hospital at various hours between 4.45 and 10.00 a.m. What drives me is the knowledge that this is the fulfilment of a dream. A dream I shared with those closest to me, some of whom have left my enchanted circle. I miss them, I always will. I learnt from them lessons that will guide me forever, the most important of them being to value myself first. Everything else is secondary to that.

My emotions are awry and tangled, all it'll take for this sweater to unravel is one tug on a loose end. I need the sunshine, the air, the rain on my face, the smell and touch of life upon bare fingertips. It is my elixir, my philosopher's stone. My cocoon is my poetry, and the wonderful people I've met through the sheer magnetism of words.

My pen runs overfull, paper is never enough. But I'm unsatisfied - I feel like each word I write is a cliche, each figure of speech plagarized from my reading. My poems are getting macabre, one life intruding, interfering with the other. My words feel weak, without conviction. I don't like what I write, and I throw it away; then I feel guilty that I should be reading for Big Exam II.

I started this blog intending it to be my diary, but I post, on an average, once a month. I wanted this blog to be the beginning of my renewed learning in poetry, in looking at life on the other side where there is grass. I aimed to make this the place where my friends could keep track of me. But I failed. For pretty much each objective with this blog, I failed. I haven't even found a picture of a guinea pig to post on here. I've turned away the very people I wanted as readers from coming back here by my inexcusable tardiness. Yes, I've managed to make them feel guilty for wanting information about me. Since I'm the only one on this planet in my position, I'm too busy to care.

To those of you who come here looking for me, I'm really sorry. I hope I'll get better. I'm emotionally tired, tired of wrestling with myself, tired of pushing myself, tired of competing with others, tired of being compared to others, tired of being valued not for myself, tired of being disillusioned. I think I'm tired of pretending to be myself.

Parthenogenesis

2007-09-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

Ensconced in the cold comfort
of moonbeams and the wild woodlands,
I bury myself in the vinca growing wild.
Star-kissed moments of exploration,
a life far beyond my own. Drawn far
from my fraternity, pulling against heartstrings
bound to to graves halfway across the world.

Step into the nests of carrion birds -
vultures in the inky sky, scrambled eggs
on the steaming earth. Little bits of plastic
floating on the night breeze, morse code
of a pulse dangerously close.
Gleaming against the dark earth,
rice flour artwork, intricate spellings of
"W-e-l-c-o-m-e" unchanged through generations.

Hidden mirrors where the dryads comb
their hair, rainbows trapped in cobwebs
and cocoons. Drip me a caress, a kiss,
and one night that never ends.

On Being a Poet

2007-07-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

I wrote this about a year ago, as a part of a self-exploration process. I'm posting it here in response to a question on Brenda's blog - What is the role of a poet in changing society.

A flame was lit in my soul by a Higher Flame, years ago when I was born. I write poetry. I use words to paint a tapestry of colours and light. Even darkness – I see in the darkness because of the flame burning inside me – it gives me vision and light. My mind clothes the thought that was born in clothes of words, and sends it out into the world, where people can see the light I saw. They can feel the emotions I felt, not because they were mine, but because these are their own feelings.
I’m an artist - amateur or not – I’m the expression of a silent society. I feel deeply everything that goes on around me. I feel for people. I feel their feelings and put them into verse so that they may feel and accept these feelings as their own.
I have been through good and bad, and my heart is scarred from bleeding and crying. But it was made sensitive by the experiences. I learnt to read into good and bad. I learnt to read people’s emotions.. I learnt to discard the mask I wore before. I learnt to look for the good in people. I learnt to look out for pitfalls in my path. I learnt that faith will be tested by a baptism of fire. I learnt that asking for help is not shameful. I learnt, most of all, to call my feelings my own.
I express for people their feelings as my own. They read the poem and tell me that they could feel my pain – but that is their own pain they finally accept. I took on the responsibility of expressing for people their own feelings unknowingly and unquestioningly, when I started writing poetry. I’m a pillar of society, where the feelings flock. My job is to make people face the realities they deny. Yes, I write my poetry as my own feelings. But I throw up questions others would not dare ask. As a close friend once told me in a conversation we had, “Questions that we dare not repeat, because our masks float away, and we are flawed and standing alone in Eden once again…”
I live in a farcical world, where appearances are superficial. They are deceptive – they are a lie – they are a mask. They are what hides the true force of feeling in the heart and soul. They are what people use conveniently to deny their feelings. Denial is a rule of survival, and feelings are for wimps. The heart is an inconvenient appendage to an otherwise fit-for-survival person. But the heart is not silent. It finds expression, maybe not in tears per se, but in other ways. Hearts reach out to hearts in silent communications of emotion. Society calls it “instinct”. I call it humanity.
I belong to this world of shifting depths, masked realities and people who have been programmed for generations that feelings are for wimps. Where the objective reality is masked for a presentable image. Where society frowns on any expression of feeling. Where society regards fear as unreal. Where we form this society. Where we stitch masks. Where we force the mask onto an innocent child, until he believes he cannot live without it.
And where I have chosen to tear the mask on Me. I have chosen to wear my heart on my sleeve so I can feel. Feel deeper, feel truer, feel closer. To myself, to my people, to my God. My courage comes from my faith and my love. For, a flame was lit in my soul by a Higher Flame, years ago when I was born….

Zen-ing

2007-04-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hand-me-down molecules from
the millennia before last, each one
a prostration of the fourth dimension.

Intention is a world away from
perception. Just as you are
your own world, and I am mine.

Sixth Sense

2007-04-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

I stand beneath streetlights
agog with fireflies who do not
know fear in their passion for light.

Molten light snaking into my lungs
while I hear exasperated nuclei
in the throes of a nicotine death,
I feel the touch of a scream on my neck -
this must be the kiss of death.

And yet, tomorrow I shall awaken
to the taste of plasticine faith,
the ultimate proof of surrender.

Surrender, to the sixth sense

Sunspot Scrolls

2007-04-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

A resplendent shade of magic
like the first leaf of spring
tentative on the lips of a breeze.

Papyrus tales crumbling in the
ancient soil will someday form
a part of me.

Goblin fruit under marshmallow clouds
slowly filling my beer belly as I lie
on ochre grass somewhere on a sunspot.

Chartered underworld somewhere
in another galaxy stolen from the light
rules in forgetful command.

Dessicated wheatgrass on my
armlet laughs at the anklets on
the feet of a cloud, chains
extending beyond my imagination.

Discolored

2007-03-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

And she stood there, watching,
as the faeries raped my colors.

She looked like she ate
strained turnips at every meal –
severe, spare and squally.

Her prim lips
squeezed into a face high
on economy, emerald eyes
with no reason to sparkle.

She held my vocal cords
twined around her little finger,
my brown eyes squished under
her bunny slippers.

Fleet-footed with shimmering
wings, the faeries danced across
the silhouette of a sunset
from the Iron Age.

Multihued creatures tumbled out
of her ancestral hat, a fat rabbit
out of its witch’s pointy end.

She swallowed my silence
like castor oil.

My heart doing the salsa
against my chest – it might
even have been
seductive.

My spirit in every butterfly
that ever flew in the sunshine

My mind splattered
in a thousand letters across
a page in a poet’s mind.

My body at a pinnacle
where pain married orgasms
in technicolor.

The daisies later rescued my
shades and laid them at my tomb
when it was found.

My tomb – the body
my soul resides in today.

I met her the other day.
Apparently,

All she can conjure now
is a night only she can see.

The night she killed Me.
The night, the faeries
were raping me.
The night I lost Faith.

(Untitled)

2007-03-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

(a work in progress)

Galvanized bodies, flying sweat, doorways
too small for four but holding six.
Sighing mass of exhaustion crammed
armpit to armpit, stale perfume mingling
with perspiration and flowers falling
from gajra's in loosened chotis.

Spacelessness comes at a premium – space is
as outdated as handsewn clothes on a baby.

Assembly lines for families silhouetted
against a sky the color of an old bruise.

Indifferent little stations with straggly passengers,
a family of Rottweiler-ish street dogs.

Important stations with milling crowds,
yelling vendors, haggling customers,
the all-pervading smell of illegal fish
fresh from the Arabian Sea.

Bombil, prawn, lobster, crab -
all nourished on your own effluent
and the occasional oil spill.

Tired voices in the cacophony of
tonight's menu, nagging schools,
chilren's artwork, not-too-healthy parents-in-law,
loss of pay leave, new sarees,
flying dupattas, irregular periods, wedding plans.

Taking turns on the one available seat,
a group of working mothers.
A baby sung to sleep in a collegian's lap
while her mother relieves her tired arms.

A group of women passing out small
bottles of water to everyone. A young girl
learning to knit from her neighbor.
A drab lost-in-the-crowd face brightening up at
her first sale for the day.

Girls poring over notes on the journey home,
group study on the move, making space
for a pregnant lady, an arthritic nani-ma,
a breathless asthmatic.

The essence of humanness reaffirmed
with the only thing that counts - One Heart.

Predicting the Future

2007-02-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

My kaleidoscope is broken.

No more will the future come in
bits of broken colored glass;
no more will you plant yourself upon
my doorstep every morning. At last, I am free.

Free to change the present.
To grieve over the past.
To dream about the future.
To merge reality of what is, with
the delight of today’s rainfall.

I’m now free of your pessimism,
your body odor, the smell of your
toothpaste, your problems, your family,
your children, your health, and that
ramp model secretary in your spouse’s office.
I need not predict her death anymore.

I will not know tomorrow’s weather;
I’d love to get wet in the rain sometime.
Or, get caught in the snow with an Adonis
without knowing the inevitable fate of our
impending break-up, so I can enjoy my
first crush, this time free of intruding thoughts.
Lose my virginity, untouched by the future.

I am free to savor every moment. Free to
experience the exhilaration of anticipation when I
open a gift, without looking for Cleopatra’s snake.
Make friends without looking for Brutus’ knife.
Live as the Lord intended us humans to be, rather than
be Caesar’s Calpurnia. I am free to live
in the present, rather than in the future.
The future is not my present anymore.