"Head Trauma"

it feels required to “earn” this healing
“all these lessons we’ve offered,
you haven’t learned
and we’ve been counting -
it’s time to settle up.
if you want this,
you’ll work down the list.”

and I hear you, I hear this,
but my clothes are in tatters,
and my body is torn and ripped,
and maybe none of this is true
and really all that’s happening
is I’m sensing the holes
on the inside bits.

I can’t remember who it was
I was hoping would call or exactly what
I wanted them to say; I’m looking
at fragments, suddenly aware
that it’s my own shards
I’m picking out of my skin.

go ahead and give me this, then:
the injection, the Novocaine
that makes me feel like my body
is what’s left of stars after the darkness
is cut away; like I could cushion the sky
when it falls and maybe my breath
could make up for the way this ended,
a little bit.

and all this and more tattooed into my armpit,
the armpit being one of the two
parts of the body I was once told
couldn’t protect themselves
by the guy who carved my heart
into splinters - the other part being
the soft palate.

I don’t want pity
or even understanding.
I think, more than anything,
I hope that in me you’ll see
stars, burning themselves
to make something out of nothing;
the knowledge than when this
endless expansion finally does
collapse, I’m leaving
less than nothing
behind.

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