My Secrets As a Syringe
Seated in the shelf along the South Wing corridor
near the corporate laboratory room,
a yard away from the psychiatry ward —
The sharp mouth on my long steel neck
pointed quietly to Mrs. Spencer’s desk,
who shouted, “What?”
to a humble ciao,
whose mouth sat at her index finger
to point at the black-white striped register
and warned one never to steal her pen.
My eye looked sharply through my tongue
at all whose feet went past the doormat leaf:
Never blinked to miss the details of hidden grief.
The sun rays shifted from rail
to grille of the window that shone sea green.
I watched them carry you in at noon
through the North wing bi-fold frame,
puzzled, dry, weak, sickly, and pale.
They sent the lancet to puncture your skin;
You sobbed like a wounded hyena in a deep pit,
seeking within your means
waste pill
to die quickly but painlessly.
They retreated in the theatre wings —
still, I sat dressed in my seal as the cage,
but their whispers were still in my range.
It hit hard my drums: a freezing spider!
Poor, old, tattered, in the dusk of life,
Why care for a life like a museum cloth?
Spent, ending, expiring, in extra time.
A Tom Ford Black Orchid fragrance,
shoes tip-tapped to my shelf,
soft tender hands were placed on my chin
and beard-lifted me in her palms.
You saw me brought into your room,
a little relief in your unblinking eyes.
A millennial Santa came to your backyard
To promise the return of the Lord?
I knew I would only prick to kill your pain,
and you would die quickly but painlessly.
I sipped from the vial to my transparent gut.
They placed my sharp eye into your elbow skin —
Screamed and let clouds see your vacant canine space.
My final days in the bin at the meeting of two walls.
I spun till my bloody sharp head faced your death bed.
As I waited for flames to run down on me,
I watched you slumber and say deep goodbyes,
As if between shores of two quiet seas.
I write this from a heavy heart
with pain of a wounded nail-less thumb.
The vial for the poor and voiceless I sipped,
yet you think you are still asleep.
My lips and tongue rubbed the jaw
minutes after your autolysis;
In the need to live healthily and thrive
we are all more alike than unalike.
Kansiime Onesmus is a 2020–2021 Global Health Corps fellow and Knowledge Management officer at The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Uganda.
Global Health Corps (GHC) is a leadership development organization building the next generation of health equity leaders around the world. All GHC fellows, partners, and supporters are united in a common belief: health is a human right. There is a role for everyone in the movement for health equity. To learn more, visit our website and connect with us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook.
