The team didn’t know how she landed there

An elderly woman

Feet bare

They checked her out said she needed oxygen

Some mood stabilizers as well

After three days they wheeled her out to where she first went in

The next week she was found lying in the brush

Her hair was a tangled web

The hikers who found her thought she was dead

The hospital checked her out once more

Pumped her with some drugs then sent her out the door

When she came to me – I’m not sure how

Could barely breathe

Her neck was flexed, she couldn’t look straight

She cried and cried, told me it could be too late

She was hungry and cold

She shivered

Our eyes met

Hers glossed over

She told me a story I’ll never forget:

“I was the beauty pageant queen of California

The runner up threw acid in my face

So disgruntled by second place

The pageant organization let me go since I was no longer pretty

I saw a plastic surgeon but even the best couldn’t remake me

A man I’d met said what he had could

I should have known it wasn’t good

The cigarettes were great

But I wasted away

I couldn’t be pretty again

That was when

We decided to visit the place where she resided

We poured gasoline then dropped a lighter

I always heard fire was the best refiner

I got some more scars in that blaze

For a little while that man-friend of mine went away

I roamed around asking for money

Always hungry

It turns out no amount could get me right

I realized all those people didn’t want me

Had I always been ugly?”

She cried and cried

Here we were in Georgia

She’d come here to escape her past

But didn’t realize she’d always been on the same path

I’d reviewed her chart

There’d been no accidents

No other victims, no other suspects

Just her DNA each time

She’d had it rough from the start

She’d been in and out of court

Never enough help, always coming up short

“How’d you get here,” I asked her

As we sat in that white brick facility

She looked around then in my eyes and said,

“You tell me

We all have voices in our minds

I listened to mine

Now here we are”

At least now she was clothed and fed

I couldn’t tell what voices were in her head

I listened, in my white coat

I marked her chart, slid her some meds

On to the next patient

Then the next

Then the next

Wondering what I was doing

Which path I’d been pursuing

I watched as that woman – scarred face and arms, thin but fed

Walked back to her bed

I saw her slip those pills into the trash

At least she had a home

I heard her laugh

Was she living

Was I living

She turned around and came near

I heard her whisper

“How’d you and I get here?”