The injections the nurses gave me

The injections the nurses gave me, originally uploaded by saore2010.

The nurses at El Hospital del Maestro decided to inject antibiotics without opening up a vein and the result was that every vein they pinched collapsed. All of them bled, none was useful more than once. Therefore, the torture was every 12 hours.

Not long ago I had a heart attack. I went to that hospital and they sent me back home with the pain. The next day I went to my doctor, he gave me an electrocardiogram and it turned out that I was having a heart attack. But do you think he called an ambulance to take me to the hospital? No, I had to walk home, prepare clothing for the hospital. Carry my luggage on my own and go to the emergency room that had sent me home the day before.


After all this happened I wrote two poems about my experience.  They were both published.  Apparently the doctors involved read the two poems and decided to take revenge on me for having the audacity to speek ill about a fellow co-worker.  And we say we live in a developed country.   These are the two poems:

Having a Heart Attack

I marched myself into the emergency room

but first I checked the ceiling

to make sure none of my dead were hanging

around. An electrocardiogram

revealed names and addresses of every man

that climbed my bed from 93 to 99.

One name showed up

and it was kind of faded.

Dr. Bangdiwala said Omar left

the outer tissue of my

life pumping muscle

slightly hardened.

Dr. Dosal gave no indication of a stroke.

He seemed more impressed by my joviality.

So much so, he handed me his business card

and asked all sorts of questions

about my mattress.

but I knew death was hounding

the inner circle of my mind on a kayak.

She had on cutoffs, very short cutoffs.

I mean, so short

you could almost see her vagina.

Hell was wherever that cunt was

and she was in my room inside a nurse’s uniform

stealing

the 90 bucks

my aunt gave me

for Christmas.

She knew I wasn’t really dying

because she couldn’t see that “Oh, Dear God,

please, forgive me for taking it in the butt

and sucking every last drop

of whatever it was that came out of it.

Forgive group sex, bathhouses, truck stops,

altar rails, preachers and priests,

the Texas State football team in El Paso.

I was young and ignorant of consequences.

The only poet I read back then was Oscar Wilde.

So you see, love and loyalty were not yet options.”

Criminals

The Orchestra

I am

this triad that asks for a fourth,

this not dead, not alive, that doesn’t bleed save through the clamor,

the extensive consensus, for what is already twisted, this hero.

Hospitals and Health Plans

You are

this procession of self-confessed criminals, this ghetto whore

capable of murdering for pennies,

this lack of common sense, this skinless machine,

this deaf ear that cannot enjoy, understand, define, or visualize

the sensuous sounds of a tango,

this flavorless postoperative procedure,

this nonexistent ER.

Strayed

I am

this ellipsis, this electronic lip tag

that disciplines our mouth, this open hand

fearful of landing on the vampire’s fork.

Dead Tongues

I am, you are, we are

this dead mother/ this dead son, this dead father,

this dead sister, this dead friend, because we left them alone

in their last minute.

Autumn

We are

this future winter, this subtropical hell,

this spring curse, this slow farewell, death’s gift.




I never imagined my poems could cause normal decent people into Nazi torture agents, but my words were potent enough to have this effect on Doctors, Nurses, Administrators, guards, and social workers.