A Routine Procedure

No Need to Worry

Eve Zennarrow

Jun 14, 2026

A Routine Procedure

By Eve Zennarrow

It’s 4:30 AM
rise like the sun
and shine on your
garden so awake
and viridescent.

Goddess of love, sing.

-music starts-

I’m trying to look my best,
but the clock is killing me.

Every beam of light
is watching my collagen
ripple, ripple, ripple.

I attempt to navigate
the topography
of your mind, and
I always go wrong
in the same place.

You’re making me
change the station,
hit rewind,
push the piano,
preserve the possibility.

After your voice returns
from the speakers,
I catch and caress it
like a branch of
my apple tree in blossom.

Your face is a tragic hue
reflecting off the glass
I keep dropping.

These hospital shifts
are getting the best of me.

My light blue scrubs
are dark with sweat,
a heart-shaped sweat spot
and a lung-shaped one,
and one shaped like a
hypothalamus in fever.

The air is oversaturated.
The life is rough with simplicity.

I always find the most
ordinary things to be
most salient.

When I packed the outline
of your hair
in my memory,
I composed its curves
to blend harmoniously
with my field of vision.

And when I see it,
I slink behind
the wall of sound,
even though I don’t sing.

Oh no, no, I don’t.
Not like that.
Not like you do.

My rhymes are
imbued with distractions.

I grant them
the benefit of free will,
with the engine running
and the doors open.

My poems are more
Raymond Carver
than Sylvia Plath—
short resumes of the
stories I didn’t have
patience to write.

-music concludes-

Abruptly.

You never stick
to the script.

It’s always
’’let’s improvise’’
like we’re wise
enough to find
the solution:

Oral drops of
medicine, dissolved.
Tissues healing,
one pre-filled syringe
at a time.

Long white corridors
plastered with echoes of
"No need to worry.
It's just a routine procedure.
It's just a routine procedure.
It's just a routine..."

Thanks for reading. This publication will always remain free. If you’d like to support my work, consider sharing, subscribing, or ordering my poetry book with a soundtrack, Brave New Chord.

Best,

Eve

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