Tiny pricks,

the numb feeling

spreading from my early morning

face and down my left arm,

already embroiled in the memory

of a similar sensation

many years before,

and oh how that brought me down,

now I find that friends have rallied round

with good wishes, unlike before

where She told me

in no uncertain terms

that I was a waste of space,

the numbness echoing and dying,

so she maintained,

in her heart was enough

to wish me dead.

 

These tiny pricks

are memories, reminders,

jogs a memory to the point

where it gallops, a thousand pin pricks

in my own poster,

adorned upon a decaying wall

and now surrounded by clinical

white and the suffering of others

in more need than I

of attention, yet

they nurse me in blue uniforms

and black tights, one smiles,

a couple frown but still

as the moment of hours

passes, I fall in love

yet again

with their profession

as they deal with

a prick

like me.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016