An Ode to the Nurses

They are the hearts that cannot harden, the hands that heal despite the break, worn down but never out, for they give more than a system could take.

For my co-workers.

They walk the halls like soldiers,

bare hands and open hearts,

braving a battlefield no one dares name,

wrapped in scrub cloth armor

where tenderness is the unspoken oath.

They trade hours like currency,

watch dreams fade beneath fluorescent lights,

charting the weight of lives held too long,

where their own breath catches,

chained by a system that has forgotten their names.

They are the unbreakable

in a place that refuses to bend,

whispering to each patient, a secret vow,

"I see you," in a world so blind,

their spirit fills the cracks in the walls.

It is not the late nights or the endless shifts

that hollow their bones and paint shadows under their eyes.

It is the voices unheard, the whispers that float,

promises empty, top floors echoing "thank you"

without ever touching the ground.

They are the hearts that cannot harden,

the hands that heal despite the break,

worn down but never out,

for they give more than a system could take.

So to the nurses, unseen saints of the ward,

you are the quiet strength in every room,

the love that lingers, even in the absence,

the pulse of care in a place of stone.

And one day, may the walls remember

who held them upright, soft and scarred.

Until then, we honor you in whispered hymns,

for you are the grace this world forgot.