Scars

by Durryle Brooks

It is a precarious kind of pang
To wonder if you have died, slipped away

A cruel and unnatural game

I remember

As you lay open on the table
This, was your second time
Emergency

Chest scars, broken bars

Cracked open, again

Is that why you pulled away?
Forceps and clamps
Holding your rib cage open
Exposing

Seeking to repair what had broken
Your heart

Did you bleed out yesterday, or was it the first time?
Fullness, and emptiness trying to occupying the same space and time

Was it you that parted the clouds?

Laughing, raining light to the ground
Or was it just some irrational mental clatter
A soul drift, the very edge of this life’s cliff

Do you know what it is like to surrogate worry or birth grief?

Just tell me If you died on the table

Heart full of iron and screws
halves and holes

Metals and machines
Pumping and clearing your blood while you sleep
Exposed on the table

Is loneliness your god?

Did you ever get up from the table?

Wounds
Stiches and staples seal
Never quite healing
The thought of living on a doctor’s timeline

Borrowed sunshine
Keeping arm’s length

Repaired stents

Covering or recovering
Do you want to heal?

Please, just open your eyes

 Durryle Brooks is a Blaq queer researcher, writer, and social justice practitioner. Fully controlled by the moon,  he often moves in and out of reverence and disdain like tides. He, Hennessey, and D’usse are in a three-way relationship.