Burn Out
It's a gut punch, ER calling again
Can’t remember the last time
I wasn't in the hospital,
Twenty one days in a row
Now, not sure, the suns and moons
Running together you stop caring
So much about yourself
About the day, the time
And then everything else
Except for the task at hand;
An abscess to lance
A port to place
Left colon to mobilize
The perfectly arrayed mesh
No before or after
Everything distilled down
To the timeless immediacy
Slicing my days
Into bracketed slivers
Incisions that only happen now.
There are unintended side effects
Of course, emotional detachment
Disengagement, psychic injury
But you can’t really feel it
When it's actually happening.
Like the wound that hurts worse
When the lidocaine wears off
Absence of pleasure
In the usual sense
But it felt real, I felt alive,
Somehow, amid the numbed
Exhaustion
And the world of things
Remains as it is;
Faintly interesting, articulable
But unreal, like a diorama
Of life behind bullet proof glass
Drained of color
Like a black and white
Sketch of people vaguely known.
I like it this way, sometimes,
Everything less complex.
I watch the world and think—
I could draw that, yes
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