Cold Fluorescent Lights
lying on the hard bed of an emergency clinic, IVs pumping
drugs into my blood to combat an allergic shock,
all I could think of was why hospital rooms
need to be so algid and bright. is it to combat
the darkness of impending death?
something to resemble the trite light at the end of the tunnel
impersonating hope? I didn’t
know,
didn’t care. I stared at the IVs pumping
transparent fluids into me, slowly,
drip,
drip,
drip
slower than death, an eternity of nothingness.
drip, drip, drip, I just
wanted out. I had simply flared
up a bit, my body had rejected something I ate,
I could breathe, I could smoke, but they
wanted to pump expensive drugs in
me to charge something extra.
the frigid, fluorescent lights bothered me more
than the itch that moved around my body, evading my
scratching fingers with more expertise than
glass bugs.
it’s how Hell must be:
white walls made effulgent by
fluorescent lights that never die out.
©2022 George Gad Economou All rights reserved.
George Gad Economou holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and resides in Athens, Greece, doing freelance work whenever he can while searching for a new place to go. His novella, Letters to S., was published in Storylandia Issue 30 and his short stories and poems have appeared in literary magazines, such as Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Chamber Magazine, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine. His first poetry collection, Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds, was published by Adelaide Books in 2021.