To be a child, to be human.

The boy said, “I’m good at making friends”
And the girl said, “To me, being free is to ride wild horses”
The boy said, “Can we stand up and sing?”
The girl said, “I know exactly how to paint this sunset”
The boy said, “I want you to have this flower”
The girl said, “I’ve never had this much fun in the rain before”

I said to myself, “What if they reject me? What if I reject myself?”
I said to myself, “I’m scared that I’m forgetting how to be free”
I said to myself, “I’m glad I’m not the one in love”… meanwhile the truth is I’m just worried I’m not cut out for it.

The boy looked at me, taking me in, and smiled.
The girl took my hand and told me her fears, and I realized I had forgotten something.
I was forgetting that to need others is not to be a child…to need others is to be human.
And maybe I’d been forgetting that I’m allowed to be human.
And maybe I’m forgetting that all I ever will be or need to be, is human.

Hospital

A hospital is a place that exposes us
Where we leave our comforts at the door
Our fears come to the fore
And we cannot ignore
the tangibility, the physicality and the fragility of life

We experience so deeply what it is to be human
To need breath, to need balance; both integration and compensation of a complexity of systems

A hospital is like the cordial without the water
So concentrated in the essence of our existence
The extremes of birth, sickness, healing and death all held within those doors

And beyond those doors, I could be anywhere
Despite the schedules and the consistency,
I feel timeless and suspended
Hanging in my own questions
As some answers float around me

But sometimes I just don’t know anymore.
There are things that none of us know
Like if they’re going to make it through the night
Why bad things happen to good people
Or if the suffering will really be worth it one day

And a constant question of: where does the love come from when we have nothing left to give? Because somehow, the love just keeps on giving.

A body houses hearts and whole networks of veins and arteries, encased in skin, both new and old…
A hospital houses loved ones, so much more than bodies.
So where did he go when his body turned cold?
I don’t really know.
In hospitals,
Hearts are restarted, and broken ones mended.
But right now, my heart is left undone.