I WANT -
let go of that. Just for a bit. it’s fine.
BUT I NEED TO -
no, you don’t.
YES I DO!! HOW DO I MAKE IT HAPPEN -
do nothing. just breathe.

me and the cards have this one-sided screaming match since years.

When I’m under the most pressure and a throbbing deadline.

Often - when I needed really concrete things that don’t just come along - like a place to sleep in three days, or money to buy food in five. it’s non-negotiable, it’s root stuff, and it needs to happen now.

In the middle of the night I light the candles again to write. Distract myself from writhing.

the yellow fingertips of my corpse hand are still numb and as the anesthesia fades from the shoulder downwards, dissolving its hold on biceps and then forearm and elbow.

Every inch that wakes feels flayed.

like getting a tattoo

my mind boxed it into something that felt manageable, known, that repeats to itself “this is finite.” remember? the pain lances, dances. Four. Seven, like the firetracing of tattoo needles lighting a nerve close to the skin on fire. it was always manageable because it would soon be over.

i squirm under the covers as the night rolls on, and pay attention.

waiting for pain to ebb is doable.

The abominable had been waiting for it to start.

i wanted to write yesterday in the emergency room.

i’d brought a book with me but not my computer. I don’t want to distract from pain with work.

The waiting room around me sagged, tired. Yellowed posters taped to stained walls, Abuse to our Staff Will result in Prosecution. Plastic chairs around the room hosting patients with their plus-one. For each pair, one person’s hand lies bandaged in a kitchen towel or clenched to the abdomen.

It’s shockingly like primary school.

the hours drag by while we cross and uncross our legs, fiddling with our hands, waiting for the sound of our names to be called by someone who knows what to do now. Is it my turn?

And then, color.

A 7-year old girl was flitting around like a hummingbird in a fluorescent pink stretch gown, glossy hair braided and clinking with 80 plastic colored beads, round and regular but also shaped like seashells and birds and things. i sidelong peeked. Mesmerized. i wished i could just stare to my heart’s content, like in my drawing days, when a sketchbook and a watercolor pen vetted me to stare til my eyeballs dropped.