She walks these rooms that we close in

her feet tap scuffle slap the floor

We've heard it all

She cries out

Sometimes ecstasy, harder, oh please, yes

Sometimes alone, oh, oh my god

She cries out

Weeping, fear and stress and doubt

Will I make it? Why am I out of money?

She stays in our rooms so much

cursing at doctors who can't help

We know she wants to leave

She confides in us

All the pain sex agony uncertainty laughter

Company and solitude, captured between us

My father falls. Or rather, he staggers, loses consciousness, hits the ground hard, and starts sliding downhill. He’s bleeding internally, and just like last time, I wasn’t able to catch him. I’m not strong enough to lift him, and I can barely keep him from slipping down the hill. People all around me stare aghast as his bones break and his daughter struggles in her incompetence to save her dad. His skin turns grey, his saliva shimmers like garnets. My mom, like the eye of the storm, stands calm and imperious. She berates me for my lack of medical skills while the panic rises like steam in my overwhelmed brain. I tell her to call 911, but she refuses to listen and laughs at me. Shock, hurt, confusion, and fear tumble around my stomach, up my throat, out my eyes. I turn around and my father is standing, coagulated blood dripping into his beard and onto his mangled body. My mom joins him, and now they’re everywhere I look. I can’t get away. By day I wait for the sticky smelly red fluids of emergency and every evening I wait for the sweaty terror to fill me.