Why We Run Poem by Henrietta Ezegbe

There are mornings
when the body
becomes secondary
to the work.

Coffee goes cold.
Lunch becomes
a theoretical event.

The restroom
belongs to another
version of the day.

A pager speaks.
We move.

Not because
we have forgotten
we are human,

but because
for a little while,
someone else
is more urgent.

There are teams
already awake
before the first call,

watching the numbers,
reading the signals,
following the pattern
before the pattern
has a name.

Epidemiology tracing the shape
of what is coming.

Intelligence turning fragments
into warning.

Systems people moving pieces
into place so that somewhere,
sometime, someone
does not have to run.

There is work that happens far from the bedside
but lives inside every bedside it protects.

A cluster noticed.
A signal followed.
A system strengthened.
A risk interrupted
before it becomes
a patient.

And then

there is the theatre,
teams standing
for hours
inside the small geography
of a single life,

hands steady
while the rest
of the body
learns fatigue.

There are people
who run
through corridors

because a heart
has stopped.
Because a breath
has changed.

Because somewhere
a monitor
has begun
telling the truth

before anyone
has words for it.

And there are nights
when the work
does not become
more noble
because it is difficult.

It simply
continues.

One page.
One door.
One frightened family.

One more decision
made carefully
because another person
will have to live
inside its consequences.

We are told
the compensation
is good.

It is.

But compensation
cannot measure
the hours
a body remains
upright

after sleep
has become
a negotiation.

It cannot account
for the meal
that never happened,

the restroom
that waited,

the face
you carry home
without meaning to,

the name
that stays with you
after the chart
has closed.

There is labor
that leaves
an artifact.

A building.
A report.
A number.

And there is labor
that disappears
the moment
it succeeds.

The patient does not arrest.
The wound does not worsen.
The infection does not spread.
The child breathes.
The family goes home.

Nothing happened.

That is sometimes
the point.

Prevention
has always been
a strange kind
of victory.

So has rescue.

So has the quiet
maintenance
of another person's
chance
to remain
inside their life.

Perhaps this is why we run.

Not because
we are invincible.
Not because
we do not become tired.

Not because
the work
asks nothing
of us.

We run

because training has taught the hands,
because instinct has learned the way,
because knowledge has become responsibility,

and somewhere
in the distance
of that corridor

another human being
has become
our direction.

The corridor
does not become
shorter.

The night
does not become
lighter.

The body
keeps the hours.

Still,

when the call comes,
we rise.

Not heroes.
Not machines.
Just human beings

moving
toward
another human being

while there is
still something
we can do.

And for a moment,
there is no question
of what matters.

Only

where to go.