Lacerations

In the absence of visible wings

Photo by Julia Kadel on Unsplash

Poised on top of a bridge. Like a pied cormorant on its way to becoming an angel. You see the torn shirt? The absence of visible wings?

No. I’m welcoming the world. I don’t see down but I do see up. Yeah head in the clouds and all that. You remember a memory: I was opening up on the wounding. The stripes on my back, on my legs, across my neck. All somehow bleeding over my chest. Again.

I used to think they’d never close.

There are days I wait for poetry to come reopen the wounds. That way I’ll have a bit of ink. There are nights when I put bandages on — false skin — a barrier. Either way I am directed. I lean a certain way: always the half-person. The Invalid. No: I cannot do that. Can’t you see I’m in the midst of suffering? Get me my powerchair then…

As if, as if there weren’t also the pleasing moments in the middle of the day where I can fairly watch the scar tissue forming. Where a sense of wholeness comes to be the foreground. The hairs, the bones, the soft texture of skin escape notice, but not the newly pink line. Blood vessels carrying on, doing their work. Reforming the epidermis.

The thing about lacerations is that sometimes we treat them like billboards. Advertising. Around this spot please tread with soft steps. No, do not get your…