I

cheesy pomo cliches

Some years back I was paralyzed from the eyes down. On the operating table the mess of my insides was stuffed back into me. I still have the scars. From the corner of my vision I see that people often stare at the scars. Like these fools, holding a camera up to the scar running between my limp, useless legs, calling it a vagina. They laugh, they drink the drink that makes fools happy to be fools. I am spun over their heads, the blur of my vision pushing me to the edge of nausea. Not that I can vomit.

I am angry (they say, pulling my ears and twisting my eyes).

I am laughing (I hear them for me).

I am f*****g the back of someone’s head (the recipient’s verb dignifying their new

label for my scar). I am a little offended by the equation of a scar to a vagina. I am not offended, I am being retrograde for my anger at the retrograde. I am to stop being made to be such a prude.

I sit quietly, contentedly, and protected from the bad, bad people. I am a poor thing and I don’t need to be abused by them or to be subjected to their violent cognitive failures. I am being given false voice! Oh please I like being stroked and the warmth.

I yell at me. That was the most disgusting voice I’ve been given, the one that poses as the authentic one. At least I am kidding. I don’t need authenticity, b*****s.

Look, I’ve been torn. I’m mine! No, I’m mine! Look what I’ve done! I? More like me. Look, I’ve ruined me. Stop looking. Leave me alone. I just want to sit in the corner in peace. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to be played with. But I am not a protestant. I probably enjoy this stuff pouring out of me.

They get bored, they get sleepy, they snore. I am sleepy too.

I am finally, alone, in the dark. Goodnight. I am sleeping.

Author's Note

I think this needs an ending of a different sort... I would like it to end in a bold assertion of self but in the voice that says otherwise throughout.