Pain Management

When they couldn't sedate me

And needed to cut strips of flesh

From my eyelid, I heard the sizzle

Smelled the scalpel burning as it sliced

And glimpsed the steam rising

Through a peephole under the

Sterile towel tent covering my face

Flesh harvested from my top eyelid 

Was grafted into the cavern under my bottom eyelid 

The pit left from digging the cancer out was filled

123 tiny stitches and bandage later, they taped an ice bag

To my head. I was warned when the Lidocaine wore off

It would hurt like hell

I lied--that I would drive straight back to the hotel

And even though the rain was pouring, I could still see

Well enough with one eye 

Until about 60 miles down I-80

Burning hot all consuming hell, stabbing, sharp, wish I were dead

So I pulled over at a Wendover casino.

To kill the pain

As long as I'm drinking and gambling, life doesn't hurt.

And it faded away until it really wasn't there 

Enough for me to sober up and get back in my truck 

A little poorer--but having money

Never made me happy.

Having you, did. 

My emergency contact. 

Someone to drive me home, 

Pathetic that this is your poem

You are not a bad person.

You give yourself away.

You take yourself back.

And that's alright

I take myself back, too

And once again, there's no emergency contact

And no one to drive me home

And I wish you had a better poem

Than this I'm-hurt-you-should-feel-sorry-for-me

Attempt to what? Get you back? No-no-no

Don't know what you were, or why you were

But you had to be removed

Just like the cancer in my eye--you had  to go

It's not pretty and leaves a big hole

That some other part of me must fill

It's an uncomfortable operation 

That  recovering from hurts

And there's nobody to drive me home

But I've been through so much worse

I'm happy to turn the page.

If there's something better for you

There's something better for me

Something better than this 

Pain management poem.

That you will never read, but somehow

Makes me feel better

Adios, Felicia