Experience: a poem by Gen

I can still feel the tremors. My veins matched the purple décor of the curtains meant to shield an individual reality. I’d grown fond of the beeping machine reminding me my heart was still beating even if I couldn’t feel it. An empty room accommodated for an intended short stay, which had turned into what seemed as an eternal abyss. As I looked around, to what I didn’t know then would be a mirrored image of years to come, I naively grouped it all as one word- experience.

Beep beep. An experience I had not asked for yet was forced to face.

Perhaps there was a reason why I choose – experience. Everyone claims to have it, yet very few know its true connotation. Yet in that moment I had learned that experience isn’t a glamorous adjective of the untouched- but rather an undesired side effect of the brokenness. This particular experience had been the side effect of many years of wrong choices. The emptiness of the room reminded me that those who I had chosen to experience life with, did not share this life experience with me.

Beep beep – you are still alive the machine reminded me.

Experienced doctors faced with an experiment. If experience did indeed make you bright- why did the room seem dulled by uncertainty? Clouded by my choices, enlightened by my mistakes. The people I defended so strongly disproved themselves so rapidly- Experience. The pain I assured I could not handle numbed my discomfort- Experience. The young girl, aged by experience. I can still feel the tremors.

Beep beep- you are still alive the machine reminded me.

Beep beep- echoes in the empty room whispered “This is the cost of experience”