You only get one body,
and that body defines what you can do.
You only get one body
and oh how I wish they were tradeable too.
There's a ninety percent chance
I'd trade with you.
Allow me to clarify that
I am not sick in the least.
Just try to understand my pain, please.

The doctors told me that I have
Fibromyalgia- a musculoskeletal pain
with no cure, only temporary escapes.
They also say my skin tissue lacks
the ability to properly connect-
leaving my skin mottled and easily bruised.
I have scholiosis.
My spine is susceptible to twists
and contractions-
pinching the nerves between each vertebrae.
As I write this,
my neck... the bones are deteriorating.

I have started my adventure now
and I am finding joy wherever I can
because I know
I am destined to be crippled, my friend.

Not only has the doctor
given me a clock.
He has offered me a challenge.
At least I know what I'm in for,
and I accept.

Poets, like doctors, know the anatomy of suffering... tearing the paper with rusty carving knives...

We see scarlet scratches and eggplant colored bruises on every square inch of foolscap... we open scars with words... stainless steel scalpels which we never sanitize...

We perform open heart surgery with blunt instruments... We cauterize the wounds with coals of Fire...

We are civil war sawbones, removing the gangrenous leg to save the body... Carrying out our task with whiskey bottle anaesthesia.

So have a care... The Doctor Is In.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/30/2016

advice for future doctors:

1. learn failure early.
you are not perfect,
and your patients need
you to be–

but you aren’t and all
those nights spent awake
will haunt you with ghosts
tucked in hospital gowns

2. learn empathy like it’s
your body under the scalpel,
your skin pulled back and
exposed under white light

scratch at invisible scars,
recall the feeling of metal
against your chest, and shiver
at the touch of another

3. learn to cry anywhere,
whether it be between
floors in a hospital
built like a morgue

or in your car, going
too fast with tired eyes
down an empty road that
you wouldn’t mind dying on

There is an emotional graveyard in my back yard
It's for all the feelings that die, and I discard

Innocence was the first to fall
But isn't it always that one for us all

Happiness fallowed soon after that
Because my life quickly turned to crap

Trust was the next to bite the dust
For self preservation it was a must

Ignorance was the very next one
I swiftly learned life's lessons
Under the gun

Love has entered and been dug up from the ground
But each time I bury it a little father down

Sympathy can also out there be found
It's right over there it's the biggest mound

Desire and all the stuff I crave
Is right here in this shallow grave

Lust that I mistook for love one to many times
Deep is it's hole it was such a vicious crime

Joy also has it's place among the markers
It couldn't be saved by the therapist or doctors

Anger was the last that went underground
I just couldn't take any more of it's horrific sound

You'll notice pain, agony, and strife
Very much still have lots of life
So also is fear and my darkness
I have placed their markers after all I'm heartless

And that last little plot way over there
Under the Weeping Willow dug with such care
It's stone only has dates and dashes
That's for my shell when it finally crashes
For it will be hollow void of all emotion
To lie in that grave will be such a promotion

They are the heart givers
and the breath takers
without them I cannot live
but just like my exgirlfriend
they can't seem to find
where they left their compassion.

I cannot breathe
but that is only because it cost too much to live
understanding their desire of money
it pains me to know greed
not of my own will be the cause of my death.

That in my generosity I forgot
planting trees does not grow the greens they seek
and the carrots sprouting are ones they eat
not the ones they don't wear to the office
but dance around their family with.

Education was supposed to be their gravity
and with each ounce of knowledge
built an anchor to the moon
because instead of humanity
they've become a celestial star
whose imagination wanders
outside the orbit of those who may be suffering.

A broken hearted soul
paves the waiting room with their corpse
because while in the void
something had to go and
it wasn't the money
but a man that couldn't
afford to keep his heart going.