The Crude and Insensitive Reflections of a Nursing Student

Your lungs don't work? we'll put you on a ventilator.
Your SA node gets off beat? we'll give you a pacemaker.
Your sphincter can't hold it in? we'll give you a Foley catheter.
Your kidneys refrain and retain? we'll put you on dialysis.
You can't digest this? We'll give you total parenteral nutrition.

This is not poetry, there is nothing poetic about this.
There's no beauty in the words sphincter, dialysis, total parenteral nutrition.
I'm not going to dignify them by trying to think of their rhymes.

Human, where are you?
What are you doing for yourself?
If I want care for you I will care for the machines.
Maybe you'll heal.
Maybe you are only a temporary ROBOT!
Or maybe not.

Maybe your lungs and kidneys have gone to heaven.
Maybe they are waiting for you next to your memories, reason, and sense of humor.
What are you doing here?
Who's keeping you?
This all sounds terrible.
What should I apologize for?