on hurt, personification
He's about 300 pounds and knows martial arts, boxing and wrestling-- both the real and the fake kind. So I never know when I'm thrown to the ground or hurled against the roopes of a boxing ring fence (who can guess when he'll surprise me with a punch next?) if the ache in my back is real or cartoon, if my bruises will stay or wash off like kiddie tattoos.
Pain is a sneak and a cheat. He loves to eat unhealthy foods (scrapple, greasy gravy, Little Debbie Snacks). Not only that-- I think he smokes. I can smell it on his breath, all fire and ash, when he pins me to my bed without asking. He's hefty and invisible and likes to strike in the dark so that even my magnifying glass and double locks are useless. Sometimes I call him Sumo, the Devil, or any member of my family. He's a changeling and a scam. His footprints are the ones that make cracks in the sidewalk.
Pain first introduced himself as a sadist. I was confused at the time. He said he was seduced by the blue of my wrist, the soft hollow at the center of my throat. He squeezed my heart like a Nerf ball until it was all lumps and fingernail marks. I nursed Pain like a mother. I tried to cheer him up like a sister, but everyone knows how that story goes.
Pain and I did have a few good times, if you can call them that. Eating ice cream under the covers, our tears drying on our cheeks so they chapped. We liked to go to movies alone. Pain, being invisible, snuck in without paying, then he'd leave the seat next to mine and feel up another girl in the theater. I could always tell which one. I'd hear her crying the way I did or crunching her popcorn as though each kernel was a small bone in Pain's neck or foot. He still comes around, though I tell him it's over, though I spit into his round hairy face.
He just laughs that sexy laugh. You know, the kind that gets in your head and you can't tell if it's making you nauseous or turning you on. There's no restraining order that works on Pain, the outlaw who loves to chase and embrace us, the outlaw we sometimes love to chase and embrace.
- Denise Duhamel, "I'm Dealing With My Pain"
Pain is a sneak and a cheat. He loves to eat unhealthy foods (scrapple, greasy gravy, Little Debbie Snacks). Not only that-- I think he smokes. I can smell it on his breath, all fire and ash, when he pins me to my bed without asking. He's hefty and invisible and likes to strike in the dark so that even my magnifying glass and double locks are useless. Sometimes I call him Sumo, the Devil, or any member of my family. He's a changeling and a scam. His footprints are the ones that make cracks in the sidewalk.
Pain first introduced himself as a sadist. I was confused at the time. He said he was seduced by the blue of my wrist, the soft hollow at the center of my throat. He squeezed my heart like a Nerf ball until it was all lumps and fingernail marks. I nursed Pain like a mother. I tried to cheer him up like a sister, but everyone knows how that story goes.
Pain and I did have a few good times, if you can call them that. Eating ice cream under the covers, our tears drying on our cheeks so they chapped. We liked to go to movies alone. Pain, being invisible, snuck in without paying, then he'd leave the seat next to mine and feel up another girl in the theater. I could always tell which one. I'd hear her crying the way I did or crunching her popcorn as though each kernel was a small bone in Pain's neck or foot. He still comes around, though I tell him it's over, though I spit into his round hairy face.
He just laughs that sexy laugh. You know, the kind that gets in your head and you can't tell if it's making you nauseous or turning you on. There's no restraining order that works on Pain, the outlaw who loves to chase and embrace us, the outlaw we sometimes love to chase and embrace.
- Denise Duhamel, "I'm Dealing With My Pain"
Labels: poetry
posted by M. at 5:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home