Under those high-ranking ceilings,
As I discussed my own sad death
With drugged dreams
Coming, going.

Where well-meaning needles
Practiced upon my flesh
Their skills, to speed up
Life-giving recipes.

Where a high-power elixired tube,
Stuck on to my treatment
With the belief of performing miracles.

Reduced to something like a phrase
Incomplete: I had no word left
For my past, present or future.

Dying! Revealed itself in everything.
Dying, revealed itself so much,
That I was awake at the thought
Of those – who were resourceless
And covered with the remains of suffering.

Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai
2000

Geeta Chhabra

From the book: No Journey Ends by Geeta Chhabra