Routine

Snow falls

and drifts across crisp air

through the hospital window.

You don’t remember going home,

you were dragged there in a dream

and wake up to find twenty hours

devoured

gone without a trace,

time eaten alive.

A familiar part of a routine,

concrete,

echoing steps dance on

the other side of the door,

and the soft light of the streetlamp

dims, then disappears.

Frozen puddles decorate the street,

and slippery feet resist your direction

hospital visits unwanted

pregnant with dread in the stomach

lively and kicking.

In nightmares, her face

is plain white

deep brown eyes radiant

and wide with fear

and you both sit, looking,

knowing, feeling,

that time is up for one of you now

and the same

will soon be true for all.

You move around in dreams,

shifting from reality,

living in abstraction

running until your legs

burn away,

become the one spot of warmth

in the brutal cold of January,

and then you wake up in

a sanitised white room

looking into wide brown eyes

repeating ‘it’ll be okay’

like a whispered prayer.