White Lines On The Guardrail
End of another twelve where the hallway smelled like bleach and metal and fear
Hands still pressed with the imprint of gloves
mask crease dug into her ear
Scrubs stained with a coffee she never finished and a tag turned around
She walks out through automatic doors that hiss like they’re tired of the sound.
Parking lot’s a quiet graveyard
cars like coffins under sodium light
She drops into the driver’s seat feeling twice her age tonight
Phone buzzes with a group text from the floor she just escaped
Someone coding in the ICU
someone’s chest still being shaped.
She’s an overworked nurse driving home on the bridge with both hands locked on the wheel
White lines on the guardrail matching lines in how she feels
Staring at that dark black water like it’s whispering “you could rest
” Thinking “I could go right over, ” then breathing
then turning left.
She’s got chart notes in her brain where sleep should land
List of meds and allergies, who made it
who slipped away, A kid with busted lungs from smoke
an old man gasping out a prayer
The one she lost at three a.m. that no one outside knows was there
All their faces ride in the passenger seat
crowding up the glass
While the radio mumbles weather like this night will gently pass.
Halfway up the bridge she feels that familiar tightening in her chest
Like something inside is asking if today she’s done her best
If best is even possible when the ratios are wrong
When ten sick hearts rely on one beat trying to stay strong
She watches taillights in the distance slide away like better lives
Thinks how easy it would be to stop meeting when she arrives.
She’s an overworked nurse who made it off that bridge with her heart still in her chest
White lines on the guardrail fading back into the rest
The river keeps its silence while she chooses one more dawn
Driving home slow, hands still shaking
but she’s still holding on.
She’s seen too many families fold in on themselves beside a bed
Fingers woven over sheets where warm turned into dead
Watched sons and daughters crack in half when the monitors went flat
She knows exactly what it looks like when someone doesn’t come back from that
So when the rail starts looking softer than another shift at dawn
She thinks of all those faces who would hate her being gone.