Hallucinations (rewriting post-physical publication)

Chapter 32 - A Poem - Conor's P.O.V.

Today, I went back to the hospital.

I didn't get much sleep last night.

I spent the majority of the night tossing and turning in my sheets. Pondering over what I will say to Nini.

My mom offered to drop me off, but I declined her offer and drove myself.

I can take care of myself, thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa greeted me with a warm handshake and led me into Nina's hospital room from last night.

She looks like an angel.

Her hair is splayed out, around her head, like last night.

One of her hands rests across her chest which is now covered with a hospital gown they must have put on her after I left for the night.

Dr. Lisa leaves me alone with her and tells me to take as much time as I need with her.

To take my time to "collect my thoughts".

So I do.

I don't know how long I sit in the hard plastic chair that faces the side of her bed until I see a piece of paper that is sitting on the desk next to her. Folded twice in the hamburger style.

I reach over and gently pluck it from it's position on the wooden surface and carefully unfold it.

In the top left corner, in carefully written black ink, is Nina's handwriting.

It says; "Nina's Poem".

I move my sight to the other corner of the top of the page and see a date written there; "June 8th, 2019".

Her 19th birthday.

When did she have time to write this?

I push the thought to the back of my head and read the title of the poem: "Life - Bring Me The Roses".

That's what she told me her "band" name was.

I might as well read the whole thing because I have already violated the rest of the paper:

Life

By Bring Me The Roses

When I thought of the Life

I discovered the people

My privacy, I could not awaken

That confidential, confidential waiting

That standby death - That standby death

Take thy pain from out my heart

I was a mortality and you an injury

And so I screamed; "Is that a personal"?

Through which came looking, looking, looking

Still is overlooking, still is overlooking

In there stepped a lost disclosure

You warned me about the overexposure

To warn me about the penalty

Back into my memories hurting

Remembering many regrettable, solo communications

Eagerly I looked for the open

And the point never noticing

Death shall bring casualties

I crave the private, pushing privacy