I.
Blasted questions.
Have you no rest?
How do I know what I know?
And am I really concerned about the answer at all?
Or is it how I get there in the first place?
(Insert something quaint here about the joys of that meandering journey.)
Oh tempestuous mind
Will you quiet your whining?
But wait, isn’t that what this is all about?
So really, is it wrong to ask why?
Let’s repeat it again.
Why.
Why.
Why.
Why.
Why.
It’s almost a statement more than a question.
I promise melodramatics are in no way the intention here.
I’m not shouting my whys into the abyss
(It’s too early in the week for that)
But asking bright-eyed and forthright
Because I sure as heck don’t know.
II.
I like to assault my father with rapid-fire questions
About everything medical under the sun.
So what you’re saying is that it’s some type of somatoform?
And please sir how does that work?
Do you know the exact pathology?
Now explain it to me again in layman’s terms.
Eventually he attempts to quell the fire-fight
By use of specificity of vocabulary,
(We’ll call it jargon)
Aimed to deter through benevolent intimidation.
Don’t worry dad, I’m not that easily dissuaded.
Better luck next time.
I even claim my own personal question answerer.
The poor soul has no choice in the bargain.
I deem them knowledgeable
And it quickly goes down hill from there.
The best ones pretend to give some guidance
Or at minimum, smile and nod.
The worst avoid my phone calls.
And now we go deeper…
III.
So tell me, brother, please
Will my heart ache like this
As long as blood rushes through my veins,
As long as gases are interchanged in my lungs?
In with the good,
Out with the bad.
They tell me that respiration not only occurs
With every force of air through my windpipe
But in each and every cell
In each and every part of my body.
In with the good,
Out with the bad.
Diffusion through the membrane.
Mitochondrial machine.
It’s physical, I mean scientific you know.
Verifiable fact.
In with the good,
Out with the bad.
Now why isn’t my soul doing the same?
Because sometimes the waters are so stagnant
I come within 8/10ths of a millimeter
Of ripping off this skin in attempts to bring sweet relief.
I get a picture in my mind
Of my back arching and my ribcage bursting apart like a bird in flight.
There are no questions,
No aching.
Just the near weightless feeling that comes with the release of incredible pressure.
They also say that what we’re waiting for
Isn’t the peeling off of grubby, pain-filled mortality
But rather the sliding on of new skin.
Dot, dot, dot,
Let’s stay there a moment.
In with the good.
Out with the bad.
I like the idea of new skin.
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