Straining Is The Drain Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

Straining is the drain.
Sustaining to remain,
Pointless.
To complain,
About that which is...
Unpreventable.
And too late to avoid.

Emotions,
Once to have and show them known.
Now do a slow motion,
With a numbness that overcomes...
An empathy gone from memory.

This...
Is not a fiction to depict,
One sitting to wish...
To switch off an agony.
When tolerating each chapter of it,
Becomes too anguishing to bear.

Nor is this...
A role play scriptured.
With recommendations to suggest,
Lines to learn...
Should be rewritten with less,
Stress to dramatize by actors.
Left too weak to leave the stage.
Rehearsing page after page of pain.

This...
Is as real as truth is to get.
Unrelenting.

Leaving nothing to say or feel.
With a mouth closed shut.
Incapable to scream.
To release relief.
Or run from a tsunami watched.
Observing it coming.
Yet...
No longer shocked or stunned.

"Doctor Warning?
You are urgently needed in the E.R.
Many await.
And more are coming.
Over the P.A. has been announced,
Another Code Red.
Doctor Warning? DOCTOR WARNING! ?
Have you heard a word I've said?
DOCTOR WARNING?
CAN YOU NOT HEAR ME? "

This...
Is not a role play scriptured.
With recommendations to suggest,
Lines to learn them...
Should be rewritten with less stress.
Dramatized to traumatize actors.
Performing at their best but left,
Too weak to leave the stage.
Rehearsing page after page of pain.
Too numb to move.

This...
Too many of them have discovered,
Is as real as truth is to get.
Unrelenting.
When committed and devoted,
To a profession believed...
Easy to glamourize.
Although...
What is sacrificed,
Never is marketed nor advertised!

"DOCTOR WARNING?
DOCTOR WARNING?
WE NEED YOU.
CAN YOU HEAR ME?
YOU PREDICTED ONE OR TWO CODE REDS.
BUT THIS...
THIS IS TOO MUCH,
FOR ANY OF US TO BEAR!
DOCTOR...WARNING.
ARE YOU OKAY? "

-I'm sorry.
I had my headphones on.
You know...
Listening to the latest sounds.
Funky too.
So...
Wassup?
Why do you look,
So frantic?
What's going on? -

"You are needed in the E.R."

-Again? -

"Yes, Doctor Warning.
Again! "