i think what i hate most about doctor offices is the attempt of care.

it would be better in my mind if they would just say:

"it is stark here. you will lose your autonomy here. do not fight it. we have paid for years of school that will leave us in debt unless we sell out and our arrogance assures us that we are right and you are wrong. your copay will be $30." 

but instead they try to hide fluorescent lighting with puke greens and sterile blues. 

the office assaulting you with smiles and understanding conspiracy winks from national health posters and drug company brochures that softly whisper evil advice 

trying to silence us

into a coma of numbness

promising relief while providing apathy.

the waiting room all bowed heads and restless bouncy shuffle caffeine feet

that tap and dance under reproductions of impressionism, or worse:

the stupid happy cottages that you half expect to swallow you. 

all smiles.

all meant to calm you.

all meant to assure you.

god how i wish for a che poster, an S and M magazine, a june jordan poem, with riot grrl blasting over the intercom.

i want patients who look at each other.

i want us to look one another in the eyes to smile

to glare

to spit

to scream, sing, cut and roar.

i want extreme.

i want my insides to match my outsides.

i want to see a room full of entrails.

honest entrails.

not rehearsed ennui and dispassion. 

not this study of perpetual cognitive dissonance. 

i don't want people to feel comfortable around me. 

i want to feel the pain. 

and i want people to hear me cry and complain about it.

i don't want pills shutting me up. making it easy. making it comfortable. making it fit into social propriety. 

i do not fit. we do not fit. 

i want the shuffle ruffle soft eggshell feet 

to be 

ripped out

and replaced with clanging banging warrior-into-battle march feet.

i want a sign in the waiting room that says:

"it is loud here. it is quiet here. it is anger and acceptance here. we sometimes know things. we sometimes don't. that is life. but we know pain even if it isn't our own. and we will listen to you, yell with you, cry with you, and hold you and rock you to sleep. because that, in the end, is all we can do. because we mostly don't know. we are sorry for the inconvenience. but this is a revolution."