I know they talk smack about me
when I'm out, cold,
lying prone on their operating table.
I want to write on my body,
"don't treat me like meat."
I have a story and a life,
I'm not just a chunk of flesh, waiting,
to be sliced open
by a knife, left hung
in a balance of life and death-
a subtle ballet.
But choreographed by them.
I have no control, no clothes.
No dignity,
lying in a paper joke.
And yet, even more
they take from m;
that they judge my body
my life - me-
by my naked unconsciousness.
But I judge them too,
in consciousness.
Though they might
save my life, they
don't have to be smug.
After all, they are only human.
So no,
I won't feel bad if I don't wait
until your shift is over
to die.
After all, I'm also human.
So give me that, at least,
my humanity.
