Always

When I open my eyes, all that welcomes me is white. It spans before me and sweeps down, the ceiling merging into the walls because there is nothing else to focus on, just the same blank, despairing color.

I hate it, I always have. The shade makes me feel cold and alone, eerily deserted. I want to bring my hands up and wrap them around my body but the silly needle that binds me to the machine stops me. As I stretch my right hand into the air, the drips move backwards through the plastic cord and the terrible haze of white breaks through the red. It is unnerving knowing that the only thing colorful in this room is my blood.

Even my face is a sickly pale white. My eyes, usually such a riveting electric blue, have faded into an opaque grey. My blonde hair is thin and balding, windswept around my face in frenzied tangle. Even my fingernails that were long and pink when I entered this room, had been nibbled straight to the end.

I recognize the hushed tones of the nurses, the snap of a gurney being raised, and desperate sobs. Hospitals are a strange place. They bring such joy to people as new life is created in the same moments that another's is taken.

I need to get up and move. The right cheek on my backside has gone to sleep, and I know its partner is ready to follow. The tape is reluctant to leave the hair on my arm but I bite my lip and tear it off. Watching the thin fiber of metal slide so easily back sparks a smile in me. Are they always that long, or am I just special? There's a little bit of blood surfacing, and I am worried it will continue to bleed. It will go away hopefully. This is not the first time I have ripped needles out of me.

I decide I want to stand up. My little toes, that have become skeletal like the rest of my body, wriggle with excitement at the thought of finally being put to use. My legs however, have decided that they are not on my side today, and won't take the weight of my body as I slip of the bed. I hit the floor hard. It retaliates with a small carpet rug – the damning color of white – and my hands are rewarded with a stinging carpet burn. Hospital wins this round. Perhaps, lying on my belly is a good idea – I am surprised that it offers more comfort than the cot. I wriggle my hips and creep towards the door, freedom only inches away.

It's too quiet in here, the rustling sound from my nightgown shifting across the floor sounds way louder than it really should be. I don't mind the quiet, but being here makes me desire to hear anything other than nurses gossiping and clipboards rattling. I've been rather tolerant considering the noises from the other patients. Bad-tempered men coughing, nurses shuffling wash cloths over surfaces with pine. And it's not the nice pine fresh kind of clean they use. It's the: you-have-germs kind of clean. The type that reminds you are diseased and unwanted, even though they keep tabs on you to make sure you don't escape.

This place is gross, masked by the scent of bleach, antiseptic and a metallic tang from stainless steel in the open air. With difficulty, I push myself up with my hands and pull my legs into a kneeling position. I take a deep, shaky breath and get to my feet. I wobble for moment and take a small step forward. And then another, and then another until I am standing in the doorway.

The ding of an elevator reaching the floor rings out in my ears. It is refreshing to hear something different this time. A nurse wanders passed me with a cart and the questionable food on the trays clatter softly. She looks at me with a confused expression, wondering if I should be up and walking. I don't give her a chance to open her mouth and continue stumbling down the hallway. I pass room after room full of sickly looking teenagers both younger and older than me. I am sixteen and can remember taking relentless trips to that same room over a span of six years yet everybody here is still a stranger to me. I do not know any of these patients' names, or how they came to be here, but each depressed expression and miserable glance fills my heart with sadness.