PSALM 22 / a modern setting
My God, oh my God, what the hell are you doing?
When I scream, you don’t hear me, and the night nurse comes.
Oh my God, I cry in the daylight to no one,
And in the night, to no one.
Maybe even king of this hospital, or more.
In you, my family’s trusting.
Reaching for hope I can’t see.
And I’m supposed to save myself
But I am miserable and not woman enough.
I am here, and you, not here.
The other patients don’t like me.
Every day, at breakfast, I find my coffee’s been drunk.
They say, “let your God fix this for you. Selfish girl, do you really think God could ever love you?”
My mother doesn’t want me,
So this part of the psalm isn’t a big help.
But apparently, when I was wanted, you were there.
Their bodies surround me and
In my nightmares they take me
I am loath to compare myself to water, for I am none so good as that.
If anything, I am the mud that leads to the river.
And you know that I’ve been stepped on before.
My strength is soft and malleable,
And comes in bottles labeled “Seroquel.”
I won’t forget that you brought me here.
A broken system encompasses me,
It leaves me to choose life on my own, and I am torn.
No one here will help me see the good in this empty coffee cup.
I’m sick of hospital food, of the taste of confinement.
Stop staring at me! And stop asking me for cigarettes.
Oh, fuck it, God, I’m asking you for help.
If you are what they say you are, feel free to do your magic.
Take me as I am, resurrect me.
I hear you’re good at that.
I will thank you each day, God, for this living if you free me.
Because if you can lift me up, I’m gonna be impressed.
Look me in the eyes and know me, as I have been fully known.
And maybe, if I have a daughter, my secret hope.
Maybe, I’ll teach her to pray.
To pray boldly, for a day when I shall know, and she shall know, that we are safe.