Armed Guards

Shipwrecked on a shore

Of feral condemnation

From every corner of the nation,

Combing every grain of sand

To find some remnant

Of your past life.

They think you’re unconscious

But you hear the whispers,

“Why are we bothering,

Can’t we let him slip

Through the cracks of our care?

Should we slip some

Intravenous fear to finish him off?”

I know not why you fill that bed

Or why your breach of protocol

Has the hallway outside

Filled with more armed guards

Then I can count on one hand.

The endlessness

Of your listlessness

And your breathlessness

That keeps draughting

Maskful after maskful

Of precious oxygen.

The threat of whip and lash

If you manage to leave

In cuffs rather than a bag.

There is value in sweat

And valour in tears,

Do you know these things?

Or only preyed upon that fact?

I don’t know

I can’t know.

I know that

The words tied to your name

Are not yet set in stone

Not carved into your bone.

The consequence

Of confidence

Is responsibility,

Is it a mantle

You’re prepared for?

Is this even your fault?

Are you one of those sad ones

Born with a convoluted tubule

Connecting ear to brain

Always twisting the truth,

Like a game of telephone

The message constantly misshapen.

Were lies only passed through your hands,

But licking all those envelopes

Your tongue stuck

To the roof of your mouth

Making truthful speech impossible?

Now having cried so many tears

The sea mistakes you

For part of itself

And heeds not your cries for help.

Though what they say could be true

That you released quivering bullets

From a quaking hand,

Don’t let the ticking of the clock

Be the author of your days.

Remember when good news

Wears camouflage

And bad news wears neon

That I’d still lend an ear.

After this one simple question,

If you could relive your life

Would you ruin it

In a brand new way?

These are questions we share

For ourselves, for our souls.

What else do we share?

Do we share a blood type?

Could your A+’s

Meet my O-’s

And make a different alphabet,

Where the words tied to your name

Don’t anchor you the same?

– Vagabond Prophet

Thank you so much @josy57 for prompting me with “The words tied to your name.” 

More hospital related poetry for everybody, or as I like to call it…

Antiseptic verse

Enjoy.