Nurse

 I didn’t want to be a nurse today.

I didn’t want to check scores of drug calculations, too many in most hours to cope with….

On cards and in books and at bedsides and with a tired colleague who smiled when she didn’t want to.

I didn’t want to carefully fill greedy little syringe drivers and set them up bleeping like tiny box robots under pillows and duvets as their patients relaxed and slept

I didn’t want to explain to lost families about the process of dying and I didn’t want to use a quip with a patient in order to make their tearful son laugh for the first time in weeks.

I didn’t want to teach a student nurse about complex pain in a way she understood as buzzers rang and jobs mounted up

And I didn’t want to write up notes , proving to auditors what I did that day and how I did it.

I wanted to lie on a couch in the warmth with someone rubbing my hair until I fell asleep.

And I wanted to eat a meal I hadn’t cooked myself 

But instead , I was a nurse today

….and it was ok