curtains . birds . windows

My writing from week 4 of The Visceral Self

colitis almost killed me


Scent of bleach and sterility
rows of yellow curtains.
Such a thin way to separate the sick.

I lie on the stretcher
my clothes loose
my bones hard knife edges through thin flesh.
The doctor has red hair, freckles, and kind, worried eyes.
She says, anorexia.
I say I am so so hungry. But what I eat passes right through me.

The world blurs then
words only chirps and rumbles 
my husband's voice 
answers questions.
My vision tunnels, edges darken. 

The yellow curtains shunt open 
a crash & rattle of ocean 
tiles laid carefully between metal 
beams & unforgiving fluorescent lights 
flicker faster than my pulse. 

Bright pain in my arm
and again
and again
until they find a vein. 

Worried whispers like leaves on trees
and a thready beeping. 
My heart 
is a tiny bird 
caught in yellow curtains. 

I close my eyes in the widening dark 
behind them is the light surety 
of death — I no longer care 
about my aching bones
my bleeding body no longer 
hungry, just waiting to be
lifted away.

And then my veins burn
And then my heart slows. 
And then I understand that I will live. 

And the hunger returns.

---

grackle

Every day at the piano 
scales, Beethoven, chords and patterns. 
The metronome. The metronome. The metronome. 

I hear tapping while arranging my music on the stand. An echo of the metronome in my ears? No, it continues, not steady. And then a rattleflutter, a movement in the corner of my eye.
 
There is a grackle at the window 
its iridescence dark and shifting 
blues greens blacks and bright eyes 
it taps at the window and calls.
I laugh and place my fingers on the keys 
the bird taps a rhythm and I play again. 

Every day at the window 
grackle taps, wings, & iridescence. 
The brightness. The brightness. The brightness.

---

You can read my previous writing from The Visceral Self intensive in these posts: Weeks 1 & 2: Tea & Sung Memory Week 3: I Remember Tobata :: Matyroshka