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next tuesday you'll be in surgery
and i'll be at home collecting cuts from
folding a thousand paper cranes
and letting them nip my fingertips
with their tiny beaks and feathers.
poor me, my family.
they're dying.
i can't even look them in the eyes
most of the time. how can i hope
to say goodbye, and mean it?
Clive Blake Jun 2017
Tell Dr Blood it's Mrs Bloomsbury;
He always sees me right away;
He's such a wonderful doctor - so much
Better than that Doctor Day.

What the devil are you incinerating,
I consider your tone a right cheek,
I've not bothered you for ages; I've
Not phoned for at least … a week.

But this is an emergency;
Yes of course it's serious,
I'm sweating, shivering, sneezing
And feel quite delirious.

I'm running a terrible temperature,
I'm covered all over in spots,
My body aches from head to toe,
My muscles all ******* in knots.

My heart's got the palpitations,
Though I've still got a pulse - it's quite weak;
My poor throat's ever so red and sore,
It's increasingly hard ... to ... speak,  

My eyes are all glazed and weepy,
My ears are infected and blocked,
I think there's a chill in my kidneys
And my joints have all stiffened and locked.

My stools - are alarmingly liquid,
My water's grey, misty and strong,
I'm suffering pins and needles, in fact ...
I don't think I've got very long.

He can see me on Thursday morning,
An appointment for half-past-ten,
But that’s no good at all to me ...
I'll be better again - by then!
refresh mesh May 2015
my story starts in North Carolina morning at 5:32
where I was excavated from my mother's womb
2 weeks past due
and immediately taken to an emergency room
because of a minor disfigurement called
ulnar polydactyly
where they laid me down and cut flesh & bone away

value your days and spin on a tire
at the bottom of a tree, twist the rope.
cut away any fray and pickle your desire
it's not a noose, it's not your hope.

i was born differently than peaks explained
i was told medical bills were a blessing obtained
so that my fingers would not continue to grow
so that fortunately, none of us will ever know
where those bitty bits would want to go
where would I go?
if I hadn't been bound
by what I hadn't contained?

how do parents agree to cosmetic surgery on their newborns?

don't they feel sick?

when my mother explained why i had these scars
She didn't ask how they felt on my hands.
and when my father kissed the bumps crunched on cars
He insisted that I had intact, normal, nerve strands.
But I could feel phantom fingers
and devil horns

don't they feel sick?

now I spend every day
chewing all the rest away
Now I count months and men
Men, who will cut their brood out of their only mate
to slice off any disfigurements and hold its jaw in place
then ball those hands in fists so her fingers can rest in peace

please
Listen when I ask for help
don't Give up on my body, just
cut the hearts of those playing God, for
anything Or anyone can happen to a newborn child, or
else, not again, it's
off, not again, not
today, not again.

I'm 6 years old, alone and terribly
glad to be awake
free of the villain that I’d been
free to make
Chunky animated evil clouds and monsters
with human names
mistrusting my family from the
earliest days
imagining my parents were zipped up
in skin resembling mine
their starchy air force uniforms
finding me everytime
Then my baby brother was on time, cooked just right,
born perfectly
When I found out about his circumcision I stopped
feeling sisterly

Why were my sweet, placid parents so surprised by us?
Keeping their secrets and distance from us.
Give us the answers, show us history!
why take me to Sunday School if you
won't sit through all of it with me?

there is nothing more disturbing than weekly church hopping.
there is so much to fear if we do not plan on ever stopping.
when I look for friends
i do so excitedly
looking for their ailments
and finger ******.
wondering who else
is in horror
of their size,
of their capacity.

"Look at these baby spiders in our garden,
Look, momma. They're so tiny.
The pumpkin nearly squished-
There's a centipede!" I'd be whining.
But, oh,
It's gross. I hear "eww" and "oh my god" and
"throw it away, bugs belong outside!"
I can do that. We all belong outside. I can do that.

From Santa Monica to Rapid City
I turned 8 and avoided depression
I plagued every single bookstore with
my ridiculous obsession:
ecology
Tornadoes, forests, food chains and chemistry
already fascinated me

I loved that;
the atmosphere of creation.
Shapes alive
with Movement and
centrifugal Force,
stopping motion, Pressure,
inertia and Speed.

I studied
legs. I watched the
long propelling jumpers, the
tool-like structures, of
insect tarsal claws, and
the spurs like knives.

Then aquatic mammals came to me
Where I first learned about ***:
the whale's hip bone, a mystery.
To the history of earth, it was
Big males, powerful females.
and evolution seemed to be the cause.

Then arboreal anthropods,
Where I first asked about distribution,
toes and fingers,
and counted
on hand
the numbers
and suddenly
deplored extinction.

It was a hot knife in my belly that never went away
I want to ask their god all the questions that besot me
why did they agree (twice!) to cut away that which is not rotting?
If DNA is best selected among genetic diversity, why must we all look and feel the same?
Blanching at any difference, hating on new names.

is it such a disaster
to expect variation from your master?
why are 2 extra phalanges
such ******* calamities?
Why do we observe differences
as an excuse to mutilate newborn babies?
Americans slice ******* off intact baby boys
Americans slice ******* off intact baby boys

A doctor deemed my extensions useless
but left me my brain and heart
which began to terrorize me
from the very simple start

I dreamed of all of us:
scary islands with giant magical
flowering
who was poisonous
to the population of anyone and
anything
who was dangerous
printing off the battle plan which was
escaping
Yes, I dreamed of all of us
Where is my gold star and my participation trophy
Alex McQuate May 2017
I must talk quick,
For I'm unsure as to when this feeling I'm having shall fade.

An inner monologue of sorts,
Much like that of Johnny Depp as he plays  the role of Hunter S. Thompson in the film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

How far,
Dear Reader,
Would you go to stick to your core beliefs?
Even if that means being Cold, Alone, and Abandoned for the Wolves,
Excommunicated and Exiled?
How strong is your faith in your ideals,
Reader?

Hopefully most of you won't ever have to go to such lengths,
But to those who do,
You unfortunate individuals,
I wish you good luck and Godspeed.
Been there before,
And I don't relish ever going back to that.

But if you weather the storm,
I'll be there at the finish line,
With a bottle of water and a change of clothes.
Just woke up in my hospital room after a scheduled procedure. Figured I'd take advantage of writing a piece whilst still loopy on medication, who knows what I'll remember?
James Cumberland Feb 2017
"We are the witnesses to how alike all men bleed."*
Man our easel, we stretch clean canvas over scarlet brushstrokes,
We work stitchings like guitar strings,
find a melody in the mending,
hide scars like bass, in clean skin,
and hide the pain from each ending.
Their lungs sing.

An alto for death's row,
its sound makes your heart slow.
Let's see what you have inside,
with open eyes, your mother cried,
in toupe-walled rooms, we cut the cord,
no savage mark by a doctor's sword.

Just silence and sadness,
greyness and madness,
long halls and dancers,
small windows and glances.
Morning abate
with hazelnut
spread on
toast that
surmount any
surprise with
lather that
only minutes
elongated tweezers
frequent inside
strand that
abet her
with hazing
particles for
extremes package
soon upon
her face
Midnight and I'm finally awake in my hospital bed,
There was an accident which almost cost my life
Rushed, rush to the emergency room
A man in white cloak says "Bring another bag, replace all the loss blood in her system. "
Eyes were focused on the lightings above.
Consciousness has left the body in the hands of a stranger.
Limbs were broken but wait, there's more.
I reached for my phone to play its tunes,
Browsed chrome, and spot myself to a familiar page
Nothing fascinating, only a sentiment of a man
I read through the pages as Sam Smith sings "Lay Me Down"
Water in my eyes started to flow while the moonlight glows
Like an empty shell in the ocean, I remain still.
Days ago, I had everyone introduce themselves.
The back side of the brain was hit, but the frontal lobe was damaged badly, a contracoup.
Doctor says this won't be permanent, just a temporary amnesia.
I listened to the ramblings around, I am lost.
Attention deficit disorder makes it hard to focus
My thoughts keep on going back to the man behind those lines
Who are you?
How are we related?
I dig my mem'ries
Deeper I go each ******* day
Blank, nothing but a blank parchment
I lost it in the seven seas.
Let's try and retrieve it.
No, once gone, there's no going back.
No, don't say no.
At least let me do my best.
Such a stubborn woman.
For once, listen to what they say
You're at fault for your misery
I don't give up, I never give up.
This is just a temporary memory lost, nothing that much.
The blood started dripping again,
I stared at the stars and the moon above.
In the realm of dreams, I return.
As an old love song says **"Till the day my life is through, this I promise you. "
****, my head aches.
Ryan Stevens Sep 2016
The scar crisscrossing your body is a road-map that will never lead back to the old you.

And so you run on a twisted and bent road. Hoping to be scrubbed clean beneath this blue, January sky.

The way back, simply, is to just go further in…one foot in front of the other.
Back in January I was given clearance to start working out again. My last surgery had been just before Thanksgiving. There is never truly a way back. Not to yesterday. Not to our old selves. There is really only further in.
Ryan Stevens Sep 2016
I
[After surgery]

Your new skin is a flat, white stone washed up into the arms of the shore

you'll need to become the rough shoulder of the sea

and wash over it

rise and fall

over and over

rise and fall

until the seams split

until eventually it slips back in place over your bones

and folds once again over the two empty caves of your eyes

until it wraps around the base of your skull

and begins to sponge up your mind

which has been elsewhere

seeped out and spread

as an unbound ocean

through the dark void of anesthesia

until you once again become small and unbroken

II
[Upon waking]

The entirety of your mind is contained within the few ounces

of ice chips in the Styrofoam cup on the tray

next to your hospital bed

you'll have to crush the ice with your teeth

let it melt over your tongue

let it seep back down your throat

over and over again

until you feel yourself

climbing up

and into

climbing up

and just beneath

the surface of your eyes

wide and clear

through this final surrender

wide and clear

through this

long and drifting

homecoming
In 2015 I underwent five surgeries for my Crohn's disease. Each was a challenge. I am absolutely fascinated by the anesthesia process. How our minds can be completely shut down. No memories can form. I hope death is not like that. At least I choose to believe it is not.
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