The girl enters the hospital doors
Her form concealed in the bulge
Of her mother’s simple
Shirt. Unable to clench
Onto her life underneath. Her fate cast
To exit once her mother carries her through the hospital exit.

Years later. The girl exits—
A blubbering child walking out the hospital doors.
A wound on her chubby arm has been cast
Beneath a bandage. Her eyes bulge
With tears, her teeth clench.
The doctor said getting a shot is simple.

Later. The girl’s mother tells her listening should be simple.
Yet the girl still fights by the hospital exit—
Her entire body clenched—
Refusing to enter the hospital doors:
The place she’d fallen on swelled into a bulge

In need of being encased in a cast.

Later. The girl points at the mother with the arm that isn’t cast,
Crying that not climbing wasn’t simple--
Even before her arm swelled into a bulge.
It was a relief when she could go to the hospital’s exit,
Unbound by a cast, and walk through the doors—
Her ability to defy words not clenched

By inability; her wrist getting clenched
Upon her return to the hospital by her mother, forcing her gaze downcast.
Despite her refutes of falling, they’d still ended up at the hospital doors.
Her mother was adamant that the reason for the lump on her head is simple.
Either way, upon their exit
The girl’s hair still concealed a bulge.

Upon returning, the girl’s head still housed the bulge.
Though now her mother clenched
The doctor’s words of truth--the girl’s fate had been cast:
A fate for which there’s be no exit.
Finding the cure is not simple
And the girl’s options had been blocked by reality’s doors.

Time passes. The girl exits the hospital doors,
Her bulge no longer underneath the cast of her hair.
Her life has been clenched by the simplicity of death.