My Heart

An eventful morning. The man with the golden eyes and the biliruben that kept climbing coded. This morning he was well, he smiled, he lied, he told us he didn't know what caused his yellowish glow. He knew what it was, he's been drinking it all his life, rarely wasting enzymes on something of nutritional value.

To my right lays another with kidneys that failed him. He lays there asleep in his pure uremic haze, uninformed of his BUN, or his creatinine. He is unaware of these things; they have no importance to him now. Soon a machine will suck his lifeline and return it to him instantly, fresh from the toxins he has produced.

Ahead lays a son, only nineteen years old. His mother sits by his bed and sings him children’s songs. He’s mentally retarded and it doesn’t matter to her. He is near death and she sings to him. She sings because she does not know this, but I do and with every note my heart crumbles, torn to shreds, trampled by my conscience. Soon, I must tell her he will die. I will kill her song. A piece of me will die with the melody. I cry now.

My life in the ICU.