DIAGNOSIS

We live in a sick world, and we’re all patients.

How disappointing!
we tend other people’s wounds
while we bleed from ours.

How ironic!
we prescribe happiness for others
as we wrap up our own sorrows.

What’s up with our infected brain?
Do we need drugs for our illiteracy?

What’s up with the fragments of conversation,
lost in the noise of the daily rush?

A polite masquerade
to mask our own disarray.

A familiar question:
“How are you?” we ask others,
whereas we need the checkup the most.

“Take a nap, you need some rest,”
these are the words of a workaholic.

Aren’t we all patients who happen to be good doctors?

we put on a white lie as a profession,
prescribing sweet words to refill bottles of pills

we give out doze of smiles as meds
for the ones diagnosed with fear.

we stitch wounds of despair with band-aids of laughter and jokes in the air.

Watching heart’s EKG skip and race
while we scroll through screens,
ignoring tired faces
CPR beeping fast…

Call the doctors!

But ask the nurses:
Who needs saving
me or you?

Come on!
It’s time to shed the superficiality,
to peel back layers of pleasantries
and seek real connection;
a pulse beneath the everyday chatter.

Where vulnerability is the drip
and honesty becomes the painkiller
to mend the fractures on our bruised hearts.

Because here is the truth no one says out loud:

The doctor is also bleeding.
The counselor has not slept.
The pastor is fighting doubts at 2 a.m.
The helper is begging for help.

We are all walking each other home
through a war zone we did not choose.

So stop pretending your wound is smaller.
Stop acting like your smile isn’t tired.
Stop performing wellness for an audience of ghosts.

Let the mask fall.

Let someone see you,
really see you
and not run away.

Learn to intake the vitamin of care,
prescribing compassion as antibiotics,
injecting the belief that we’re all intertwined.

For the world is sick.
Yes! the world is sick.

So, to all my readers,
the patients we become.
look around the room,
we are all in triage,
breathing under the same thin sheet.
and maybe the final prescription isn’t a cure, but a witness.

Maybe the healing is in the hand that holds yours
when the monitor won’t stop beeping.

We heal together.
In the gentle hush of the aftermath,
in the brutal, beautiful act of trying again tomorrow.
We heal.
Together.

We live in a sick world, and we’re all patients.

How disappointing!
we tend other people’s wounds
while we bleed from ours.

How ironic!
we prescribe happiness for others
as we wrap up our own sorrows.

What’s up with our infected brain?
Do we need drugs for our illiteracy?

What’s up with the fragments of conversation,
lost in the noise of the daily rush?

A polite masquerade
to mask our own disarray.

A familiar question:
“How are you?” we ask others,
whereas we need the checkup the most.

“Take a nap, you need some rest,”
these are the words of a workaholic.

Aren’t we all patients who happen to be good doctors?

we put on a white lie as a profession,
prescribing sweet words to refill bottles of pills

we give out doze of smiles as meds
for the ones diagnosed with fear.

we stitch wounds of despair with band-aids of laughter and jokes in the air.

Watching heart’s EKG skip and race
while we scroll through screens,
ignoring tired faces
CPR beeping fast…

Call the doctors!

But ask the nurses:
Who needs saving
me or you?

Come on!
It’s time to shed the superficiality,
to peel back layers of pleasantries
and seek real connection;
a pulse beneath the everyday chatter.

Where vulnerability is the drip
and honesty becomes the painkiller
to mend the fractures on our bruised hearts.

Because here is the truth no one says out loud:

The doctor is also bleeding.
The counselor has not slept.
The pastor is fighting doubts at 2 a.m.
The helper is begging for help.

We are all walking each other home
through a war zone we did not choose.

So stop pretending your wound is smaller.
Stop acting like your smile isn’t tired.
Stop performing wellness for an audience of ghosts.

Let the mask fall.

Let someone see you,
really see you
and not run away.

Learn to intake the vitamin of care,
prescribing compassion as antibiotics,
injecting the belief that we’re all intertwined.

For the world is sick.
Yes! the world is sick.

So, to all my readers,
the patients we become.
look around the room,
we are all in triage,
breathing under the same thin sheet.
and maybe the final prescription isn’t a cure, but a witness.

Maybe the healing is in the hand that holds yours
when the monitor won’t stop beeping.

We heal together.
In the gentle hush of the aftermath,
in the brutal, beautiful act of trying again tomorrow.
We heal.
Together.