The Truth About Tigers

by Phoebe and Nick Allison

Fluffy pink unicorns dance on rainbows
while long-lashed dogs wear flowers like fur.
Soft green Yoda-lights sway overhead,
framing my second-story window
where moonlight spills onto the bed,
silver-casting quiet shadows.

I drift,
carried across a calm sea of sleep.

At dawn, I wake in a brighter room—
its sharp light hums like a secret.
A blue shark swims
across a storm-tossed whiteboard
before the bed floats gently down
a river of tile.

Magic doors open, a deep breath,
and then—nothing.
Quieter than dreams,
deeper than memory.

When I surface again,
the curtains sway, soft as whispers,
their patterns slip through the mind-haze.
Family waits, voices steady, smiling
as I slowly return to my body.

A kind nurse guides me to the chair.
Its wheels sing toward the elevator,
to the car,
and then,

Home.

Whole again,
though I never truly fell apart.

Note: This poem was first published in Issue 3 of Poems for Tomorrow, a poetry and art journal that shares creative work with patients in hospitals and care facilities. Their mission is simple and good: to help people feel connected, loved, and heard during hard moments. They put together anthologies of poems and art that are placed in hospital waiting rooms, senior centers, and long-term care units—places where a little beauty can go a long way.

“Magic Doors” is a chain poem co-written, line for line, with my 11-year-old daughter, Phoebe, during the days surrounding her surgery to repair a severe double fracture in her left forearm. Both the radius and ulna were shattered, and the repair required rods and a full-arm cast. The poem tells her story through the eyes of three rooms: her bedroom the night before, the pre-op room, and the recovery room. It’s about resilience, imagination, and the strange kind of magic that shows up when you’re stuck in a hospital and still trying to feel like yourself. She’s an amazing, kind, empathetic, and creative kid, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

They also published Phoebe’s original painting, Stargazing Cat on a Beach at Midnight—an acrylic-on-canvas piece she made for her grandfather while he was in the hospital recovering from throat cancer surgery.

Please check out Poems for Tomorrow and support what they’re doing. It’s a genuinely cool and meaningful project.