Be careful what you say

I’m in pain.

Drew the Hellebore plain as day

and anger they say,

is a killer.

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It was my right hand. To start, it was my right hand. Dead in the middle of the night. It would last a minute. Then a couple minutes. Now four whole minutes. They say it’s a compression nerve. Completely numb and I would begin to shake it. At first, it took a minute? Likely a minute and a a half but now it’s seven times to the bathroom and three minutes to wake. Which doesn’t seem like a lot in writing but count it. Begin 1….2….3…4 and imagine you need this hand to prop you up. /imagine you’re waiting, some urgent need or just the shock of it. The consistency; every night it seems. IImagine it, if you will, the dominant hand, and you need this hand to open knobs. Imagine flushing the toilet. Imagine the toilet paper. Imagine if you will them both now, left and right, and now you have to pee three or four times a night. 

He said when I talk about you there’s a lilt in my voice. What do you say anymore to the question was he your only brother?  They simply don’ t ask the number of fathers. And really, there’s so many other things that bother you sometimes it doesn’t even come up. It’s redundant grief. Or at least that’s how it seems.

—————————-

as if I am even hurting anything;
some tremulous thing
shaking her fist at the
moon and praying for a tidal
wave.

you notice my arms are toned,
you say I really wear my weight.
you watch me lift bone to sky
and notice the notch in my veins
before you even notice
the flood.

before you even notice the tilt of the
throat, wavered and
lifting.

1.

——————–

I’m in pain.

Be careful what you say but also there’s a ring to it. I’m ok.

Place the drawing of the Hellebore somewhere near. 

It is with love that I do this, Thy will be done.

———————