silenced
i have a lot to say
i have a lot to give
i have a lot I want to hear
but i have been silenced
too many times
and my questions go unanswered
by a certain man
i’m trying to find my voice again
but it’s hard
When the pulse oximeter lies 80%
flickering, fatally dropping, she takes
my supposedly dead pointer finger
in some sort of nurse’s palmar grasp reflex
trying in vain to transfer her heat to me.
Plug in socket, the only transmissions
between us are the unspoken truths
of such a situation. Head down, she ducks
out of the room, returns holding pediatric
equipment. The reading finally works,
correcting truthfully to 100% saturation
when the sensors finally sit snug enough
to pass light through my frozen skin.
I am perfect, alive, just ice, just nail
polish armored to hide the blue.
With a green train on my WelchAllyn
child-sized blood pressure cuff, there is
measurably less of me, almost 20,
than when I was 10 years old, blood still
full of oxygen as I’m vanishing into thin air.
Full on only oxygen, I’m thinning into air.
I’ve been told my hands are like chicken breasts.
It’s why I quit guitar–
I couldn’t stand to think my fingers might callus,
rough beyond recognition.
I don’t know how violinists do it, playing eyes closed in reverie.
Perhaps the instrument has embedded itself into their fingers
so that where there were swirling lines there are grooves,
which, when fit together with the bow and the neck
play music in bold notes that manhandle
wavelengths of light and sound.
I have friends who won’t take pills
They swear off them before they even started
when a baby fell out of me they handed me ibeuprofen
when the anxiety ate me alive and I paced the floors till they creaked beneath my heavy feet
they gave me one prescription then another
now when I can’t find sleep
and I’ve tossed and turned and prayed
I’ve found myself medicated again
melatonin melting on my tounge
I swear this is my last one
a seal bit me in my dream,
lunging out of the water and
clamping down on my foot.
I was at a middle school friend’s parent’s house
I had never been to before in real life
out in the country.
we met for lunch under the cozy shelter,
sat on pillows on the floor
and watched exorbitant numbers of cats roam, mill, and play.
I turned to have some food, already disappearing
from memory as I saw it,
and by the time I turned back,
the cat sanctuary turned into an ocean,
and my nemesis got me.
fright sparkled in my chest like fireworks
and pain froze me solid,
but I had to do something.
I reached down and used my fingers to
unclamp its jaw from my body.
when I woke, I dreaded
the seals in my life which would latch onto my foot.
I am not a seal tamer at sea world
or a deep sea scuba diver;
I am not a ship captain or fisherman,
knowledgeable about watery biomes,
but I am a human with a need to survive.
While the prophecy foretold hardship,
it also envisioned my ability to escape.
Winter clings to the bones of earth
Ice wrapping around like sinew of muscle and tendons
Heavily weighing down branches
Grief a very similar fashion
Melting muscles heavily against lungs
A breath can never be felt
Fully
But spring’s joy and love
Begins to blossom
Hazy soft shades of pink
Sprouting
A life burrowed in the depths
Of the underworld
Reaching up
Opened palm of resilience
She reclaims herself
Hades lost, becoming Persephone
a pregnant pause
perhaps that’s a misnomer
as you stare at the screen
a little too long
mouth slightly agape
a tiny furrow between soft brown brows
you move the wand
and I watch the small being on the screen
still
so still
and I plea to the god
I feel certain has already abandoned me
let there be life
you promised me rainbows
I hear the words behind your lips
I know the truth
feel it deep in my gut
nestled like a pseudo-twin
to my lifeless fetus
my womb a warm casket
suddenly I’m haunted
by a future never lived
a child who never was
