Report From The Hospital

Report From The Hospital 

 Wislawa Szymborska

“We used matches to draw lots: who would visit him.

And I lost. I got up from our table.

Visiting hours were just about to start”

When I said hello he didn’t say a word.

I tried to take his hand—he pulled it back

Like a hungry dog that won’t give up his bone.

He seemed embarrassed about dying

What do you say to someone like that?

Our eyes never met, like in a faked photograph.

He didn’t care if I stayed or left.

He didn’t ask about anyone from our table

Not you, Barry. Or you, Larry. Or you, Harry.

My head started aching. Who’s dying on whom?

I went on about modern medicine and the three violets in a jar.

I talked about the sun and faded out.

It’s a good thing they have stairs to run down.

It’s a good thing they have gates to let you out.

It’s a good thing you’re all waiting at our table.

The hospital smell makes me sick."

When I read this poem, I felt that the person had no desire to say their goodbye to their loves ones. When a person knows that they are dying, especially have no cure then, they no longer care to live. They are just waiting for death to take them away. When a patient is diagnose with a deadly illness. It scares the patient because all their future goals they wanted to accomplish might never become true. In some cases, being a hospital might worsen the patient condition rather than making better because you think about how many patients have die from the same illness. The hurtful treatment you have to go through, it just makes you weaker instead of stronger.