Sunday, October 24, 2021

wound porn

there was a four-foot tube going from my nostril to my small intestine, and i pulled it out, twice, once while vomiting. 

i figured out how to work some of the blinking, sucking, beeping machinery, and when i'd had enough, i switched it off. 

i took the loudly ticking clock down from its high place on the wall and removed its battery. 

i signed a waiver of liability so that i could be allowed to sit up in bed.

i told them i wanted ativan, and a full milligram, not a child's dose. 

i allowed a young male nurse to wrap me with a vinyl leash and walk me up and down the corridor. 

i became conscious well into a narrative with a daisy miller-like subplot. 

there in trinidad and tobago, i gave her one more chance to choose between the hipster boyfriend and the security of her father.

i drifted in the streets after they made their choice and moved inland, toward the volcano. 

i evaded pickpockets and thugs in a dark terrain of campfires, our shadows splaying against the outer city walls.

i got a ride in a jeep full of local teenagers speaking tagalog.

i cooked a pork shoulder in an aluminum pan at an outdoor community kitchen.

i slept in a flophouse full of mattresses in wall alcoves and flashlights and men.

i met the girl who was going to solve the problem of the tracking wires embedded in everyone's eyeglasses or canes. 

i was desperate to find an overall solution, but i could only wander from situation to situation. 



by Donna

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Repast

watching her dance plays
all their muscle keys
her inner commands
can freeze them in place

but she can't reach me
the pitch of my jib
bends off her song
and won't let me on

my breathing, long and
unobstructedly
tacks the vanished spell
only when she's gone

only when alone
can i read her lips
free from the bleeping
moment's disorder

wings sweep on the floor
panic and truth merge
is this not my drug
or not me at all
 
on stolen spirits
please the vacant skull
take time and hurl it
with your polished shoe
 
realization
is after it's through
what's not caught is true
so what have you done? 



by Reptily