From a Distance

There are things they never tell you...

That it’s impossible not to care.

Uninterrupted breaks are all too rare.

You know what your patients go through,

You've walked the mile with them too,

Their shield from sneers and stares.

Their guard against pain and despair.

These are the things they never tell you.

The hardest part is this, I fear,

That their fate you may never know.

Walk in, and one is no longer here,

To home or hospice or where none may follow,

No-one tells, and you may shed no tear,

And for a moment, your heart is hollow.

This perameter is known as the Italian Sonnet, which is split into two parts. The first part flows a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a, while the second can be comprised of two to three rhyming sets. For this, I chose the simplest, which flows c-d-c-d-c-d.

I wrote this after one of my home care clients had a severe fall, and I arrived for my shift to see them being loaded into an ambulence. Honestly, it's like being a teenager again: writing angsty poetry to deal with my Complicated Emotional State.