"amputate" poems
1737
Rearrange a “Wife’s” affection!
When they dislocate my Brain!
Amputate my freckled *****
Make me bearded like a man!
Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness—
Blush, my unacknowledged clay—
Seven years of troth have taught thee
More than Wifehood every may!
Love that never leaped its socket—
Trust entrenched in narrow pain—
Constancy thro’ fire—awarded—
Anguish—bare of anodyne!
Burden—borne so far triumphant—
None suspect me of the crown,
For I wear the “Thorns” till Sunset—
Then—my Diadem put on.
Big my Secret but it’s bandaged—
It will never get away
Till the Day its Weary Keeper
Leads it through the Grave to thee.
8.2k
Twenty seven months of sunlight showers,
and I am still white –
can he pull me into vinegar?
Make my skin peel into another shade?
No one will recognize.
Our relationship is an oasis, not on a map
but I can spread like an ancient one –
used to being fingered and opened,
garden is a home of myriad wedding vows
when the wind gusts, he feels a promise
touching concealed cartilage
of his ear. No one has spoken so low and
has been heard by anyone even if
the feeling hangs like ferns from a rooftop.
And our body, our single form
hums in a similar silhouette with him above.
No one can amputate his seed from me:
I keep growing into last December
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC
Bright buds hang precarious on their limbs. Their hundreds of digits green and supple sway as the winds try gently at first to shake them from their perches. They snap back, their ties elastic, always bending.
The wind struck harder the third time. It caught them off guard, swinging back to face the sun. It barreled over them like a train, limbs snapped like bones under tons of industrial revolutionary steel, the cracking brings tears to the eyes of passersby.
They were so green, so verdant was their exuberant friendship, covered in rosy flesh and sturdy bark, ring after ring of tribulation and triumph, but it fractured like a wish bone. She, Persephone, prosecutor of Her, Demeter, was judge of them both, prisoner of herself.
Solitary confinement.
She tugged at her half, she needed the wish, She need for Demeter to see that She needed wishes just like the rest of us.
Demeter, jury. 12.
Her crime: attempted impartiality, balancing a utilitarian ideal that we can divide our attention based on who needs it most. She cannot be tried on account of her inability to read Braille ciphers in gestures, ****** expressions, and Tumblr posts.
Demeter tugged at her half, but only enough to show the other that she was there,
but consistently there.
It wasn’t enough.
Snap.
No marrow could be found.
Where flesh was meant to be dripped rot, an odor of resentment filled their nostrils, it choked Demeter, as Persephone had been choking for years.
This resentment, this cancer, this jealousy, it grew inside of Persephone like a tumor, days from metastasizing, the spread could have killed them.
Amputate.
You two are a tree. Bright buds dangling from every limb, they are still soft and green and supple at their ends.
You two are still growing.
Persephone will cut out this cancer, and She will heal herself, scar tissues covered by broadleafs.
You will soothe them for her. And you will see past the rosy flesh what pain it may hide.
And you two will grow. Roots firm, faces braced against the wind, and limbs always turned towards the sun.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
Sugar level on high
Cronenberged my body
I’m so sorry my little frail body
I betrayed you like the *** I don’t get
Pretty soon I’ll fix you back with levels in tact
No more on your *** and you better work it fast
Feet tingling and sleepy every time
Didn’t mean to get sick
I got enough time to get better
Farewell youthful age into changing leafs
it’s a way for growing old
I fell against pastel spilling colors and it took me out of my grey zone
Don’t let my face amputate so forget it
I’ll be cured
sugar level are you high?
taking in so much insulin
glucose isn’t good for toast
I don’t want to get needles in my behind
rather get myself tapped with hands
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 8:39 AM UTC
"shop closed"
**the sign never sat
perfectly on any hook
or nook
or cranny
you are an echo bounced
perfectly in every hook
and nook
and crook**
"considered sold once broken"
**consider it done
once dealt with the devil
his ornamental fairies
consider them whole before
they were bought**
"trespassers will be prosecuted"
**bedsheets spun out of cobwebs
sandcastles spun in of air
floorboards swallow you in
you dreamt of
anchoring yourself
to the ground**
"wine house"
**lustre of turbulent pirouttes
trapped within the walls
of wine glasses and
wine-stained dresses
in cadavers' masquerade**
"emergency only"
**they pushed you in the operating theatre
and cleaned their hands with soap
opera
amputate these phantom limbs
pain has been the only anaesthesia**
"in loving memory of"
he is the protagonist
he is the antagonist
and all stories end
(with)
the former
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 9:36 AM UTC
If you remove darkness inside me how much matter would remain?
Would it be a clean break or would that shadow leave a stain?
The antiques passed through generations only weigh me down
Heirloom weakness and shame parents wore as crowns
Would bring all the way till I crossed the finish line
Their weight is making progress steadily decline
Yet when I try releasing find their grip is way too strong
Have no other choice but drag these heavy burdens along
I fear limbs decay the more time that passes by
Friction wearing holes in flesh
I can't sever ties
A broken soiled reputation all I've seemed to gain
Blessings one by one like drops of water swirled the drain
Under layers of appearance is a piece of myself I rightly hate
Seems to be too large to safely amputate
These cheap thrills have gotten more expensive than platinum and gold
Their toll taken by draining my peace and prematurely making me old
As I held dreams in hand I stumbled and I fell
Shattered as they hit the floor
Hopes more fragile than eggshells
Then clumsy feet only made the mess worse
Every step makes a crunching noise
Wish I could somehow reverse
I never knew growing up would cause me to feel so low
Only when flying too high that I see how far the pavement waits below
The little girl in me died now there's a stranger in her place
Look in mirror and am terrified because the stranger wears my face
Nov 25, 2021
Nov 25, 2021 at 12:28 AM UTC
Long before Horus' exposure on its trunk
and the nailing of Jesus upon its grain,
rings have been added within the Tree
while people proclaim to hold the key
of salvation: a continually borrowed mythology
swallowed; an extra-strength sleeping pill
pulling the masses into slumber,
and away from the awakened truth
that such supposed salvation
is an illusory ticket far too easy to obtain
for it to be real—
a discriminatory, fairy tale-damnation
that multiplies the divide
of "Us and Them."
Too many people hand out the easy tickets,
then cut and light the tree:
a hypodermic injection of selfish memories
mixed into the mortar of temples designated as sacred,
while dogmatic shears amputate roots from the sky.
Too many people preach
about a cheap, polystyrene heaven,
while only a few walk the narrow path
that leads towards the kingdom within,
and live the sacrifice because it feels right.
Again and again,
the ticket isn't so easy.
We must put aside our slumber-crutches,
stop watching the few carry the rest
upon their backs, until bones creak and groan
from the weight of people waiting for salvation
to be handed to them.
For 27 years, 46664 was etched into the bark
of a branch in the road.
When forked doors opened,
a living, breathing gospel
brought down fences,
and even then, the wood was made into crutches
for people to say,
*"M will fix it; M will do this, M will do that;
M will save us, just wait and see."*
M is finally free. Yes, he is free!
Free, but not lost to us;
he survives as spirit-seeds.
We must cease to lean upon crutches;
we must purge the pill from our blood
and awaken into gardeners who water the seeds
within the soil of our hearts,
before the vision withers completely,
and we remain only as husks
waiting to be hydrated by watering cans—
weakened hands and arms unable to lift their weight
held in our own hands all along,
held in our hands all along.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 3:51 PM UTC
The moon shone full that fatal night
When Stonewall and his men
were returning from a scout
around their former friends.
The brightness of the risen moon
Put them in silhouette.
The pickets rose and fired;
an action they would soon regret.
Stonewall Jackson was unhorsed,
a Minnie ball in his arm.
The surgeons had to amputate.
One week later he was gone.
It marred a famous victory,
A masterpiece of Lee’s,
when Jackson crossed over the river
to rest in the shade of the trees.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 9:04 AM UTC
Girls have beautiful legs and men have beautiful hearts,
both I love to squeeze, both I love to open
hide my gold locket inside like a ticking bomb:
I use the chain to lasso arteries and muscles for me to chew on
but the necklace unbolts for a souvenir collected inside.
It could be the curly hair of his shin, one wisp from her neck
I previously tugged on with my teeth. I performed
open-heart surgery on a man and open-leg surgery on a woman
both called me back to say a second goodbye
and I wonder, I wonder which farewell will be the final.
When will the mementos be massacred
glued to a comatose form, deceased into an emotionless resin?
I could amputate their limbs and turn off the pacemaker.
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
What are we now?
A half-buried sentence
A message delivered to
The wrong address
I reach for you and touch nothing
I hate the squatter in my skull
Your voice pacing my corridors
Your face nailed to the
Backs of my eyelids
You’re gone
But I still wear your fingerprints
Like burns
The safest place I ever knew
Has collapsed
The walls I leaned against
Are rubble in my throat
I gag on dust
I choke on your ghost
Everyone tells me to “move on,”
Like it’s just a switch I forgot to flick
But your absence is marrow-deep
It hums through bone
A phantom limb jerking at nothing
I want to amputate the thought of you
But the blade keeps turning back
Into my own skin
You are everything
And nothing
And I am stuck in the wreckage
Beating my fists against a locked door
Leading to nowhere
Aug 28, 2025
Aug 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM UTC
"plan a" was to be cordial:
you said, "coexist."
we toasted with our cappuccinos,
"to coexisting," before replacing our masks.
smile. wave. be polite.
I suppose some dozen missteps by me rendered this plan
useless.
"plan b" is much harder.
put your hand on the table.
the knife comes down, quick,
press the hot metal to the wound.
amputate. cauterize.
use your friends as a tourniquet,
like the one I've been twisting you into for the last year
and a half.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
Meat
You make me want to get high and end something.
Your childhood shouldn’t be mine.
You apathetic ****
I know you don’t care.
That’s why it hurts.
You’re father was gone,
Maybe that would be better.
You’re here, but not for me.
You’re just a huge tease.
Without words you flay.
Furl me in a calm.
Just to show what worth you have of me.
I’d rather be whipped.
At least then you’d use me.
Your always at my leash.
If I try to pull you to me.
You’re never at the end.
Endless release of my constant fill.
Never seems to bring benevolence.
Slamming fists, yelling to a burn,
Biting until blood, hurting until bruised.
You’re a tick I can’t rip out.
Burrowed and *****
I can rip my skin open.
Dig in.
You’d never be found.
I’d amputate your from me.
With a saw, knife, or bullet.
You **** me dry, and never pass a nod.
I can’t scream into another.
Or cry with someone.
They’re nothing to me.
Cause they’re nothing to you.
I have no one.
Monkey see, monkey do.
There’s always something absent.
Turgid and deeply rooted.
It hollows my chest when I feel it.
I’ll never taste it.
Or have the chance to waste it.
Finding someone to abridge.
Is frustratingly crippling.
I sting just thinking about it.
You knee capped me.
I’ll never love.
I’ll never be loved.
You made me meat.
You made everyone meat.
Mar 30, 2021
Mar 30, 2021 at 4:23 PM UTC
here's the price for playin with fire
I'm the dealer you're the buyer
one way ticket to hell
i sense your eagerness, i know it well
STOPPIN FOR PASSENGERS
get some rush thru your vein
here i am to step up the game
okay sit back relax
check your arms .. their full of tracks
moving on to your femoral vein
a 5 mill needle gonna rush your brain
watch out for the DVT
the NHS amputate for free
sit back and enjoy the ride
you're about to lose all your pride
you just handed it to me
i ain't finished yet ... you will see
here i am to make you hurt
as I grind your life into the dirt
(C) MANDY RIGBY 23.06.214
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 8:55 AM UTC
You rent out my hand
and abduct my mouth
to force me to speak
I will oppose
You intoxicate my legs
and hide away my feet
while returning my debt
and ***** me
just so I may speak
I oppose
You embrace me in a tea room
send me grape juice
and give me a sentence
only for me to speak
I am opposing
You amputate my brain
so I may admit to my thought
And play me a tape which is outgoing
So I might decide to say
of my needles
and say so speaking
I still oppose
Sep 6, 2010
Sep 6, 2010 at 1:25 PM UTC
Amputation (the final word)
Who thought…? Who knew?
Now it’s you
And fingers gone
To amputation.
You’ve seen programs. Said, “How brave!”
Thought about limbs saved and strengthened.
Training every second hour,
Power growing,
Phantom aches and pains still gnawing:
They’re a marvel!
Now you know!
For that’s the way the cookie crumbles,
And it humbles one, for sure.
There’s no cure for amputation.
Something gone is gone.
The answer is to go on
Taking pleasure, having fun,
Taking sun and making merry ‘fore the sun goes down,
The gone-ness mostly in the brain.
Strong and proud:
Join the crowd!
Amputation 6.6.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
Amputate; To cut off (a limb) by surgical operation.
Origin: mid 16th century: from Latin amputat- ‘lopped off’, from amputare, from am- (for amb- ‘about’) + putare ‘to prune’.
Note: “Amputation” was aimed at anyone who is amputated and happens to read it. It’s not aimed at the world. I saw this impressive documentary about a group of men and women sorely handicapped in one other way, taking a group trip to and through Vietnam, and was so moved I just had to write something.
They went through rivers, caves, highways, narrow wooden bridges, taking turns at driving, some never having driven, trusting one another, exhorting one another...
That’s what inspired this poem.
Jun 8, 2020
Jun 8, 2020 at 3:56 PM UTC
I have no solid idea of where I stand in regards to the social bonds I've thus far formed. No conclusion I draw is indefinitely backed up and the more I think about the inconsistencies of my observations of others versus their actions thereafter, the more I am frustrated and pushed to understand and predict them. There is an invading paranoia swelling in my skull; I fear I am being lied to, and I harbor very little doubt that this is so. Disheartened, there is not much left to do besides either amputate these slippery bonds or perform surgery on the minds of others, coaxing the literal unbias I so crave from their auditory masks.
*Do not **** with me, you machinations of society, my fuse it short.*
What a puzzle, what a fruitless aim. I've been removed for such a time that I'm unsure whether these cogs deserve motion, or even feel righteous in their rotation. I deserve but one of three outcomes. That I might see the actual grinding and spark, that I might unbind the ties of this machine to my being, or that I might find some hopeless madness to consume my concern.
Jan 30, 2013
Jan 30, 2013 at 7:23 PM UTC
She doesn't aim to ****
She rather puncture, amputate, deform
She's never done spinning her web
Even when you're paralyzed
She magnifies her lies
And calls it transformation
Convincing others you're a burden
Who needs to be put out of her misery
She doesn't believe in raising the dead
But she's an expert in lowering the living
The sudden best friend who keeps her enemies closer-
(An angel with no motives is a demon in disguise)
She's dancing and singing in my opera of horror
She's happy to play the part
She's waiting for my lavish palace of wonder
To turn into a grotesque carnival of mirrors
As underneath those China eyes and pirate smile
Hides a latrodectus blackbird-
Leaving her venom and ******* your essence
So she can fly
So don't be fooled by the lack of red-
She keeps the hourglass in her head
She's in the business of changing names
Passing to you the hysterics of Jane
(Claire, I can't find you in there)
Thriving on your denial
Creative only in deception
She'll put your footprints on a devil's pact
And call it her reception
True as any fallen black wing
She only shows herself in shadows
The little, rogue, blood-thirsty fiend
Loves to get her hands ***** in private
But while she drinks from the cup of others' sorrows
Thinking she has lightning in a bottle
She may forget that one of these tomorrows
Her beloved beast will turn on her
Living in her kingdom of jewels
She would've gotten away unscathed
Pity, the infrastructure wasn't infused
With wisdom-
The charmer of limbs will fall
(Silly girl,
Robots aren't sacred)
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 7:39 PM UTC
When he was eighteen
Went to his mom to confess
Mom I'm gay
All I do is think of men
Dream of two or three at a time
From Sunup till forever
Staying on my knees never getting up
I'm going amputate my feet
Donate them to an amputee
Not one to be wasteful
Hope this don't make you sick mom
Called his father who answered just to scream
Don't call me ***
Then the familiar sound of the phone hitting the ground
Starts laughing cause this happens every time he calls
Six hundred spent on replacements
His mother goes to interrupt he cuts her off
Mom there's more
I'm addicted to gay ****
To the point I seen everyone
Now I watch straight and my stomach turns seeing the girl
Would've told you sooner but I didn't want you to be like dad
Your all I got
But I been busting nuts for years staring at men's butts
One day, and this bad
But I almost ***** the mailman
But Saved by the Bell came on and Zack is my favorite
Hope I haven't let you down
I hope you still love me
I hope.... She cuts him off
With a long strong embrace
Few tears falling down her face
Love whoever you want
Be with anyone you choose
I'll always want what I always wanted for you
Just to be happy
You have never disappointed me
Until now
Remember those nights when you was five
I sat and held you to calm you after your father left you
The anger you had at fourteen and took out on me
The lost time we had cause of the two jobs I had in order for us to make it
But most important
Don't you remember the most important thing I taught you
If you did you wouldn't be sitting here telling this story
It's a good one and if I wasn't so hurt I would make you prove it
I can't believe this is how you do me knowing I'll die fighting for you
This ain't your first lie but it's by far the worst lie
I'm seeing what I always been afraid of
You being like him
She came by today to let you know in person being you quit taking her calls
You were gone so she told me that you should know
She's not pregnant
But now what bothers me more is
What if she was
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 11:01 PM UTC
She fell and broke her life
People rushed to help
It was touch and go for a time
The surgeon had to amputate
But he was finally removed
The recovery was long
Sometimes she felt he was still there
Touching her inside
Messing with her head
They said this would happen
Such intensity is bound to leave scars
But they would heal
Someday another would come along
She would be stronger.
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 3:02 PM UTC
I used to believe
that if I wore socks to bed
that they would cut off the circulation to feet
while I slept,
and I would have to amputate my feet off
when I woke up.
I still take my socks off before I go to sleep
because childhood fears make sense
in the darkness.
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 1:04 PM UTC
Amputate
His leg
She said so calmly
I thought
Yours first
Jul 19, 2021
Jul 19, 2021 at 2:09 AM UTC
FROM THE FLAGSTONES
This concrete town with no guts,
no grit where we can only smirk
as galoshered feet slip ‘n’
slide in and out our café where
exhalations of icy conversations
mix with the fog and cigarette smoke.
It’s a damp riverbank town
border with riptides
sneak currents
no watchtowers no walls
an escape for the committed
or reckless – the next country
a lucky swim away.
You draw down
panelaks, teetering like headstones
(that lost their plots
a regime ago)
pen in flagstones and millstones
flower tubs filled
with butts and dead dogs
tarted up with cans and stencils
subjects of your studies in pencil.
Nature’s only concession
(so far as I can see)
is this wedge like a warm slice of pizza -
four fall trees jutting out of the bar
where dogs curl up in corners
and mist pushes in fishermen
selling trout -
the toxic confetti
swirling around the passing
procession of Saturday weddings
dragging monochrome trains
drawn into this twilight
fugue whisked by an accordian player,
guests laughing back at us
while you’re smirking back at them
cocooned in wine and tuica
almost lost in your sketch
smudging *** ash for sky
dreamy with relaxed fatigue
of travel and infatuation.
Your pad’s our field dressing
that could work for a while
before the gangrene sets back in
so I’d like to amputate this souvenir wedge
for my scraps book.
I watch you listening out for the shanty
from the flagstones – about weeds
delicate, green, undamaged,
muscling through the cracks
in the concrete
drawn up to the cut where
we also look effortless and a little green.
Tomorrow we head for the border
and only one of us can swim.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 6:26 AM UTC
I wish I could navigate the minefield of my mind
Its corners dark and undefined.
One step too far, it all explodes
It explodes, my being erodes.
I walk through slowly with a hopeful face
Behind me, anxiety soon gives chase.
Anxiety stabs me, sanity's scorcher
And as I weep, I'm ****** to self torture.
Cut in the heart by worries future to past
I'm paralyzed to think this day is my last.
I break the mirror, shouting at my appearance
Meandering in camouflage is my only clearance.
I'm comforted by brief moments of peace
But it's back to the minefield as those cease.
I sit and smile as I amputate
In this personal hell I create.
And I shudder to think of an eternity bound
To this forsaken battleground.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 12:33 AM UTC
I danced crazy dances on a dumpster
with a crazy girl with
infected crusty/bleeding scabs on
her knees and I think
I know how they -
got there.
She's one of those twisted mad/junkie types
crashing into life like automatic weaponry
raining down from helicopters exploding people's heads
like pumpkins
She moves fast and doesn't give a **** about what happens
next.
Back to the scabs...She can't go see a doctor, where the hell would she go?
I was thinking I'd take some change and buy
some peroxide and pour them on her knees -
but I don't think she'd let me /and it might be too late
for that
That angry reddish streak coming up from one of them
performing some kind of hostile takeover on her leg
she's running from her problems but she ain't gonna
get far if they have to amputate.
I tried not to retch and throw up bile
on her thinking about it (haven't ate yet)
because I don't think it's her fault
we all gotta make a living somehow/
just some of us are dying faster than others
while they do it.
I hate the way this society treats women.
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 11:29 AM UTC