Looking for Meat

Some days I can't talk.

I don't know what to say.

You don't want

to know about my day.

How I spent an hour

on the train track

south of Breaker Yard

looking for meat

off missing legs

by the raising steam

between the train wheels 

and gaps in the tracks

after a train hit a car

and killed a man

by severing his legs,

shattering his bones

until the body shrinks,

twisting the head out place,

looking up, mouth agape,

filled and spilling over in blood.

How back at the  barn,
after shift, in the locker room,
my fellow officers joke, ask,
"Why, didn't you do CPR?
You never know.
You could get the Life Saving Metal."

"Hey, anybody up for spaghetti?"

How I struggle to sleep sober.
How I all I want to do
is to go to sleep, hit the gym,
and go back to work
all over again.

Comments

[Cath]

This is a part of the job that we never get used to. I think yours a sign of good mental health and a normal reaction. I know we joke about terrible things as a way of dealing with it, but there's a time and place.

My thoughts are with you, Raindog *hug*

[Easily Lost]

I wish there was something I could say to help, but I can't even begin to imagine what you go through some days.

[Peppypilotgirl]

Hang in there. The world is a better place for having you.

[Ninjamedic]

My ears are always open for you and I have broad, waterproof shoulders.