Tag: Lindsay Ratcliffe

Four Poems by Lindsay Ratcliffe

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

My body has been changed forever

and I wonder if people will know who I was.

I have pieces of metal in various forms
shaping who I am
in more ways than one—
three plates hold my hips in place
preventing them from dislocating.
And screws—I don’t know how many—
holding those plates to my bones.

I don’t want to be buried when I die.
The idea of being trapped underground
even if I am not there, is terrifying,
but if I were, I wonder what would be said
if people found my body in 100 years.

“What the hell happened?”
“So small, so sad.”
“She had Progeria.”

Can you even tell that from a skeleton?
I think of what the anthropologists thought
when they learned of Neanderthals.

The first people to discover them believed
that they were primitive, incapable of language,
people classified as an “evolutionary failure.”

Now people are learning they were intelligent
and capable of caring about each other.

You can learn so much from what’s left behind,
one skeletal bone can say everything.

* 

Exorbitant

A 2023 Porsche,
836 tickets to Disney World,
136 Round trip tickets to London,
3 brand-new Jeep Wranglers,
39 16-inch Macbook Pros,
more than a year of tuition at Brown,
a family of 4 living in Hawaii for a year.

These are just some of the things
you could buy each month
at the price of a life. My life.
The drug company bills
$99, 547.49 a month.
Over a million dollars a year.

Meanwhile I am trying to
remember the lyrics to “Good days”
by SZA while I’m washing my dishes.

* 

The World to Pieces

When I open the email my vision blurs.
Bankrupt. The company that produces
and distributes the medication I need
to stay alive is

bankrupt. Everything feels unsteady.
I don’t know how many needles,
how many tests,
have gone into me getting these
yellow powder-filled capsules.
How do I get my medication?
Will I have to go without?

One email, and all the powder
spills out of the pills straight
down the drain.

*

Stacked Deck

When we were in the hospital
together, getting treated
we argued over a
deck of Uno cards.

He says, “Draw,
until you can play.”
So I did.

Red, blue, green,
everything except
a yellow card.

I ran out of cards
to draw, but we both
lost the game.

*

Lindsay Ratcliffe is a poet from Flat Rock, MI. Her work has focused on her experiences with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome. She is graduating from Albion College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and English. Her English degree has an emphasis on Creative Writing.

Five Poems by Lindsay Ratcliffe

~ ONE ART ~ 6 Comments

Former Ninja

When I was little I scared
my parents, walking so quietly
once I spoke or touched them
they startled. Jumping slightly, saying
I’m a ninja, never making
noise, or telling me they needed
to put a bell around my neck,
like a cow, which made me giggle.

Now I can’t walk anywhere
without sound. The scratch
of my walker dragging
across the concrete, announcing me
wherever I go. I listen
to music so loud to make sure
I can’t hear myself move.

*

Ivy

My favorite nurse
leaves the room to grab
duct tape for Dad’s shoe.

We noticed the sole flopping
around walking to the hospital
that morning.

She brings back two rolls:
neon pink and cheetah print.
9-year-old me lights up

and Dad regrets his decision
while me and Ivy work:
overlapping the neon

and cheetah print to
make a beautiful overlapping,
striped pattern–

continuing our comedy when
we decide the other shoe
needs to match.

*

Thirteen Years Old

They introduce themselves
by last name:
“Dr. Kim, I’m responsible
for your bones.”
“Dr. Verkler, I’m doing
the plastics part, your skin.”
“Dr. Kiers, or Alex, your
anesthesiologist, I’ll make
sure you’re comfortable.”
Plus two more per doctor, who introduce
themselves while I think this gown
is too big. They’re here because
I’m rare and this
is a teaching hospital.

I want to teach them
how to close a door
the next morning when
a school of them—
plastics first, then ortho—
come for rounds.
Even more than I saw
yesterday in the O.R.
They crowd around the foot
of my bed, like fish
when you throw bait
off the dock. I want to
teach them to be kinder
waking me up since
I can barely manage
the pain that they
have caused. But they
don’t care, because I’m rare
and this is a teaching hospital.

*

Trading Secrets

I haven’t always used a walker.

I used to be a dancer, from first grade
to freshman year of high school.

I loved hiking and nature.
The faint rush of the water,

the subtle yet defining cracks in rocks,
or even the faint changes in the tree leaves.

I’d run ahead, so excited.
Sometimes, when I daydream, I wonder

if my veins are filled with longing
and my heart an abyss of remembered joy—

the fleeting moment of playing kickball,
choreographing dance routines in my
unfinished basement—

yet these feelings are so heavy that I hold them
inside. I want someone to come around,
know the right questions to ask and help me.

I want to go back to being a little kid,
when we could exchange lighthearted sentiments
because someone asked, quietly,
Should we trade secrets?

*

Crying at 9:17 PM

You press your spine into the cold
tile wall in the bathroom you don’t share
because you have no roommates.

You’re 21 now, why do you care
that your so-called friends aren’t wishing you
“Happy Birthday!”

You don’t know. No, yes you do.
You didn’t think you’d see today.
You’ll finish what you started,
but you’re over giving so much
to people that couldn’t care less

that you turned 21 today. Your gift
to yourself is learning
not everyone deserves all of you
and that you can get up
from the cold wall and
wipe your own tears away.
You are worth more.

*

Lindsay Ratcliffe is a poet from Flat Rock, MI. Her work has focused on her experiences with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome. She is graduating from Albion College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and English. Her English degree has an emphasis on Creative Writing. This is her first publication.