Crisis Unit
by Darlene Pagán
Maybe it was the question’s precision
or the exam I’d been studying in algebra
that made me think, More than one?
when she asked how many pills it
would take to kill herself. Heat fired up
my back and my face like an electric
current. A freshman in college, instructed
to answer the phone only if no one else
had by the fifth ring, my voice whined
when I finally spoke. I suppose it depends
on the kinds of pills. But she had no interest
in solving for unknown values, no interest
in the difference between rational or
irrational numbers as she rattled off
pharmaceuticals as if she read from
a grocery list. It was dinner time and from
another room forks and knives clicked,
glasses clanked, voices erupted in laughter.
The last thing I wanted was to put her
on hold or shout for someone’s attention.
The last thing I wanted was to spend
another second on that phone. In a few
years, I’d have the right words on my tongue
to comfort or subdue. I’d know to call
911 on another line or recognize she
wasn’t even crying, was likely baiting and
provoking me, and had, like so many
other clients, called only the night before
searching for the tender voice of her
favorite counselor. When the line
went dead, I convinced myself she had the
better head for numbers, more experience
in crises, so that, no matter who had
answered the phone, the woman on
the other end would discover the
constant truth of the next full breath.
____________________________
Darlene Pagán is a writer and educator, mother and wife, scholar
and activist, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in
Two Review: An International Journal of Poetry and Creative
Nonfiction, Willow Springs, The Birmingham Poetry Review,
and VoiceCatcher. Pagán’s essays have appeared in The
Nebraska Review, Literal Latté, and Mother Writer’s Literary
Magazine.
On “Crisis Unit”:
Philip Lopate says remorse is a good starting point for writing
personal essays. Poems too, I think. It took twenty years after
working in an actual crisis unit to be able to write about it, not
because it was so terribly painful or sad, though it was often
painful and sad, but because I needed far more life experience
to understand those experiences. Now, I feel as much remorse
for those who phoned in nightly as for the girl who had to answer
the phone.
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Spring 2010 Next page ►
Maybe it was the question’s precision
or the exam I’d been studying in algebra
that made me think, More than one?
when she asked how many pills it
would take to kill herself. Heat fired up
my back and my face like an electric
current. A freshman in college, instructed
to answer the phone only if no one else
had by the fifth ring, my voice whined
when I finally spoke. I suppose it depends
on the kinds of pills. But she had no interest
in solving for unknown values, no interest
in the difference between rational or
irrational numbers as she rattled off
pharmaceuticals as if she read from
a grocery list. It was dinner time and from
another room forks and knives clicked,
glasses clanked, voices erupted in laughter.
The last thing I wanted was to put her
on hold or shout for someone’s attention.
The last thing I wanted was to spend
another second on that phone. In a few
years, I’d have the right words on my tongue
to comfort or subdue. I’d know to call
911 on another line or recognize she
wasn’t even crying, was likely baiting and
provoking me, and had, like so many
other clients, called only the night before
searching for the tender voice of her
favorite counselor. When the line
went dead, I convinced myself she had the
better head for numbers, more experience
in crises, so that, no matter who had
answered the phone, the woman on
the other end would discover the
constant truth of the next full breath.
____________________________
Darlene Pagán is a writer and educator, mother and wife, scholar
and activist, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in
Two Review: An International Journal of Poetry and Creative
Nonfiction, Willow Springs, The Birmingham Poetry Review,
and VoiceCatcher. Pagán’s essays have appeared in The
Nebraska Review, Literal Latté, and Mother Writer’s Literary
Magazine.
On “Crisis Unit”:
Philip Lopate says remorse is a good starting point for writing
personal essays. Poems too, I think. It took twenty years after
working in an actual crisis unit to be able to write about it, not
because it was so terribly painful or sad, though it was often
painful and sad, but because I needed far more life experience
to understand those experiences. Now, I feel as much remorse
for those who phoned in nightly as for the girl who had to answer
the phone.
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Spring 2010 Next page ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 5, Number 1
(Spring 2010)
Copyright © 2010
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 5, Number 1
(Spring 2010)
Copyright © 2010
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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