Forgiveness
The first time I hurt
I was nine. Upright in
hospital bed, plastic gown
riding up my rear; fear
carved on my mother.
They told me it was
called Staph. They wheeled
in charts, graphs, morbid
models to help me see
how my blood would rot.
Vile pus from swollen pipe
to the plague’s work site
where a sinister cellular mage
transmuted blood to poison.
We had to drill at once.
Even after the surgery
parents, grandparents, friends
held me down by the wrists
and stuffed velcro in the hole
where my rib had once been.
Riiip, went the germs.
Bandaged back up, a pat
on the head as if that
would be enough to push
away the thought of what
might happen to me if
they didn’t love me enough
to strap me down and cull
away my Flesh for my own
good. Mom asked if I
remembered some time ago.
Over dinner, a conversation
about pains unremembered,
and she wondered what I
knew. I told her I knew,
but the rest I kept shut.
For when, several years after,
she sat me down to question
why I was The Way I Was,
I thought back to the velcro,
pulling at things deep, carved—
qualities that we all feared—
that can’t be taken away.
No matter how old you are
some pains never truly fade.