Poetry By Micah James Bauman

        Sunghwan Yoon CC




Age

21:

“You’re not alone,” she said.
I tried to hide the
stitches across my throat.

She lifted her arm
to show me several scars. 

She shrugged. 
“Just another reason for me 
to get tattoos.”
 
Hours later, she was on the floor,
crying and shaking as staff
members tried to restrain her.

I remember her name was one 
that was a combination of names, 
like Rosemary or Maryann.
Only it was one I'd never heard before.

A few days later, we bumped fists. 
That was the last time I saw her.

18: 

I was in a hospital with
a teenager named Amanda
who had driven there 
on her own after 
hurting herself.

That’s when she realized
she probably needed
a medication adjustment.

She said she’d miss me. 
Because I was funny and nice.
Other patients teased me 
because they knew 
I thought she was pretty.

I didn’t want her to leave.
I told her I wanted 
to take her home.

It doesn’t sound right
when I say it now, 
but it may have made
me feel less alone.

16:

I almost got into a fight 
my first day at the hospital.

I bumped the door handle
to a younger boy’s room.
He rushed out and
screamed at me.

I smiled nervously. He said
my smile was disrespectful.

He thought I had stolen
a present from a girl 
named Brittany; 

it had been confiscated 
by hospital staff.

Brittany and I sat together
with the boy that night. 
Later, she told me her mom
had breast cancer.

Then she showed me her 
drawings of tattoos
she wanted to get.

One, a pink ribbon
on a plain sheet of paper,
with carefully written letters:
“No one fights alone.”

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Micah James Bauman’s poems have been published in South 85 Journal, Electric Rail, and Sage Cigarettes. He has been nominated for Best of the Net (2020). His most recent publication is a chapbook collaboration with his father, David J. Bauman, called Mapping the Valley: Hospital Poems, published by Seven Kitchens Press (2021). He is currently writing a second book with his father as well as his own poems.