"St. Morphine, she cried, give what relief you may.."

Poem regarding an ER visit and a fantastically inspiring girl.

Transcription of text: Having to speak low, because the hospital people kept leaving our door ajar letting the sound of the emergency room waiting hall in all the time and in a wishful blue kind of place like that, I felt the quiet best kept around For when in the room they put me in, a girl is behind a screen crying for morphine, talking with her mother with a voice that on the breaking of notes speak so much of courage from a place where it isn't strength but will one draws from Will to not worry, to not scare, to not be a reason for losing hope with someone unknown suddenly at the other side of a hospital green veil barely able to keep quiet after they keep telling him that "you're only gonna wait a while" hour after hour until he plays drums on a chair, hums to himself, and once, asks via Google Translate "If you want me to keep quiet, I will. If I am bothering you, please let me know so I don't cause anything to feel amiss, for you, miss girl-behind-screen. You can just write here on my phone a reply." She writes: "Please, sing some more silly things, and something if you can, for my mum. She likes the slow, sad things, like "Arabic Name" that didn't translate, into my alphabet I mean." So I sang, and she cried for morphine. Her mother kept calling relatives in Beirut, and they kept talking back and forth. Hour after hour she would speak strength and courage, like as if her soul didn't.. wouldn't, perhaps, let her mother see her suffer so much she cried for morphine when she forgot to be strong. I couldn't do more than be amazed, humbled and even fall a little bit in love for that strength, that spirit and that heart that while crying morphine said guessing at spelling and I don't speak arabic well, so this might be wrong, but I think it should read like this: "It will all work out fine, mum, don't worry. What did aunt Ishma say? Our coursins are fine? I'm glad." I wished for her a morphine angel, a "Sister Morphine Nightinggale", italian seraphim of relief for troops at the front, relief from pain at a hospital ward behind a hospital green screen, anything that would make her not have to be .. that strong. Rarely, if ever, do wishes come true. Nurse comes in, talks to them in rapid Swedish, then returns with an enormous syringe full of.. diklo-f*****g-fenak. I wanted to scream my head off at that idiocy. Might as well give her paracetamol pills, ibuprofen or a f*****g fizzy thing in a glass of water. or you know, something that might actually help. Like.. I don't know.. Relief. (St. Morphine) When I finally got my okay-to-leave, having had no worse than waiting around forever in that ER ward day turned evening turned night, she was still crying morphine in her sleep. I wrote: "You are incredible. So strong, and what a courageous heart you have!" on a piece of linen bandage, draped it over the screen and left for home. Today I remembered her again. Hope she is well. and that she doesn't have to be that strong again. J.