Each Day
I stepped around the dead body
Careful not to disturb the evidence.
“What’ve we got here, doc?” I asked—
A seemingly daily routine in LA.
Always asking. Confirming my fears that
Yet another murder had been committed.
I saw an intern to the ME enter the room
Cover his nose and almost vomit.
You do get used to it. After the first twenty
The nausea stops. The headaches give up
Their relentless pursuit of inflicting pain.
I finished a sweep of the room, saw the blood
Splattered on the wall. It had been messy.
Murder usually is. That’s one consistent,
Reliable thing about my job. It’s almost never
Clean. Never pure. Always evil. It takes
A toll on your mind and body. Forces you to
Wake up when you don’t want to—when you
Wish you could just stay under the covers and
Forget the horrors of the previous day.
It’s always children that affect you the most.
They’re the ones that give you the real
Nightmares. And if you don’t solve it, you
Blame yourself forever. Another reliable:
The blame never stops. The guilt. Parents
Will blame you. Families will blame you.
You will blame you. I thanked God this
Wasn’t one of those. It’s horrible that your
Mind gets used to some of the crimes.
But you have to. You can’t let yourself
Worry that much about every single one.
You get through each day that way.
—
A/N: A work-in-progress: I plan on making this much longer (and changing the “ending” so it’s not so much an ending), perhaps the length of the whole investigation. But knowing me, who knows when that will happen.
A. Page in the Stacks 