IN WHICH MY CHRONIC PAIN INCARNATES AS THE WORRY WOMAN
Stretched is the language she speaks. Thin is her favorite tune. A whistle that only stumps can hear. Her mouth, the first slit the world had ever seen. It runs north to south. A vertical horizon where morning abandons you. A wretched zipper that won’t open. Can’t open – never felt that word to even try. Never eats. Never drinks. Just peels her cuticles to the meat. Skin curling back like pencil shavings. Its ribbon keeping pace with her thoughts. Fast as a park swing that unwinds in reverse. A spinning that scribbles the globe. Her whole body is one, deep wrinkle. Deepening as time leaks. From cellars and slack jaws and one-sided sex. She folds in on herself when she walks. The original stick figure from a mother’s day card in the trash. Makes you gag when she smells you. You start keeping a bucket under your desk. Excusing yourself at dinner parties. Hacking phlegm mid-belly laugh. A gray that lingers when comfort leaves the room and can’t return fast enough. Find her pleasure in the second before a door slams. She doesn’t need to be summoned. She is the seal where your eyelids meet. Tweezers your dreams apart. Pins them to her shadow box. Hangs your sleep above her bed. She’ll blink your life away. You stop finishing your sentences. She’s harvesting the wet from your lips. You’ll pick up the phone to call someone, anyone, and the dial tone is your wrists cracking. Then one finger after another. Her crunch climbs your neck. See-saws your spine. Yanks your gait. Missing a step on the stairs. When she leaves, your back pulls out. Bulges a disc. Outwits the x-ray. The CT. The MRI. You say no to soccer. Stop bending down to hug your niece. Buy the largest pill bottle at the pharmacy. Bring heat pads to movie night. Standing feels like taxes. Conversation feels like traffic. Work? Good luck. Try sitting through a meeting when she threads your life on her panic-loom. Lice combing sensation. Laying her eggs at your scalp. Your new Friday is lying in the dark, whimpering to the crack in your ceiling. Your new home? A waiting room where every face is a stuck clock. When the doctor asks, where does it hurt, she answers for you – anywhere it possibly could. *This poem was the winner of the poetry category of our 15th annual Writing in the Margins contest, judged by Smokii Sumac. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Regina Public Interest Research Group (RPIRG) for this year’s contest.
Black News 
Stretched is the language she speaks. Thin is her favorite tune. A whistle that only stumps can hear. Her mouth, the first slit the world had ever seen. It runs north to south. A vertical horizon where morning abandons you. A wretched zipper that won’t open. Can’t open – never felt that word to even try.
Never eats. Never drinks. Just peels her cuticles to the meat. Skin curling back like pencil shavings. Its ribbon keeping pace with her thoughts. Fast as a park swing that unwinds in reverse. A spinning that scribbles the globe.
Her whole body is one, deep wrinkle. Deepening as time leaks. From cellars and slack jaws and one-sided sex. She folds in on herself when she walks. The original stick figure from a mother’s day card in the trash.
Makes you gag when she smells you. You start keeping a bucket under your desk. Excusing yourself at dinner parties. Hacking phlegm mid-belly laugh. A gray that lingers when comfort leaves the room and can’t return fast enough.
Find her pleasure in the second before a door slams. She doesn’t need to be summoned. She is the seal where your eyelids meet. Tweezers your dreams apart. Pins them to her shadow box. Hangs your sleep above her bed. She’ll blink your life away.
You stop finishing your sentences. She’s harvesting the wet from your lips. You’ll pick up the phone to call someone, anyone, and the dial tone is your wrists cracking. Then one finger after another. Her crunch climbs your neck. See-saws your spine. Yanks your gait. Missing a step on the stairs.
When she leaves, your back pulls out. Bulges a disc. Outwits the x-ray. The CT. The MRI. You say no to soccer. Stop bending down to hug your niece. Buy the largest pill bottle at the pharmacy. Bring heat pads to movie night.
Standing feels like taxes. Conversation feels like traffic. Work? Good luck. Try sitting through a meeting when she threads your life on her panic-loom. Lice combing sensation. Laying her eggs at your scalp.
Your new Friday is lying in the dark, whimpering to the crack in your ceiling. Your new home?
A waiting room where every face is a stuck clock. When the doctor asks, where does it hurt, she answers for you – anywhere it possibly could.
*This poem was the winner of the poetry category of our 15th annual Writing in the Margins contest, judged by Smokii Sumac. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Regina Public Interest Research Group (RPIRG) for this year’s contest.
