The Head Aches

I am a wounded bear

in a bed.

My head is unable to move

held down firmly by

my pillow’s grip.

A nurse comes into the room

and tells me to get up

and sit in a chair.

She is insanity

dressed in white.

Does she think that she is waking

her son to go to school?

Her husband to go to work?

The top of my brow

is criss-crossed with stitches

concealing the little trapdoor

the doctor made in my skull.

I can hear the water on my brain

sloshing when I turn my head.

To say that I have a slight headache

is like saying

that a nuclear explosion

is just a puff of smoke.

Through swollen eyes

I look at the nurse

the cheerful minion

from hospital hell

and I know that if she tries

to raise my head from the pillow

she will disappear

underneath a volley of vomit.

        Mercy!

Give me mercy

and some pain killers.

Let me sleep with

the drowsy dreams of drugs.

Let me hibernate.

Let me lie as still

as a stick.

Let me float out of this body

like a carbonated bubble

and sail on the ceiling

until the body is healed.

Did I have brain surgery

or was I hit by a truck?

The nurse is dancing around

my bed playing peek-a-boo

with my vital signs.

              Pressure

        Blood Pressure

              Pressure

              Pressure

              Pressure

My head is screaming!

Give me some relief!

Feed me lime-green Jell-O

laced with morphine

then let me alone.