Omphalocele

December 05, 2024

This holiday season, betwixt Thanksgiving and Christmas, people are supposed to be thankful. Some people are thankful for all that they have. I am thankful for what I don't have.

Look up the word omphalocele. View whatever pictures you will. Think about how many changes to your life this condition will cause. Think about how much money will be needed to live with this. Think about how much more will be required to cure or repair this.

Substitute omphalocele with any other debilitating condition or disease you can imagine. Then, this holiday season, and every other day since, remember, "It is not that you have what you want. It is that you want what you have."

Nuff said.

Many years ago a sad house enlarged its violent tales

Mascara painted dreams smeared bloody on faded checkered walls

Thumb stubbed cigarette halos coughing out ghosts

Over gimrack bedside snake sleaze

He was an army

So she did as he pleased

Her fishnet stockings razored mesh

Soul shed tokens shredded on floor-mats

Hosting butterfly knife inch thick angel dust

Peppering a darkly delirious dance upon vomit caked regret

Diana’s skinned sensuality held hostage

For he had bullet hole eyes and a machine gun heart

And wore a Cheshire grin

Sharp as a battle axe

Wrestling to harvest her body’s thrashing grain

And plunge his rust eaten scythe

Beyond malice’s ravening abyss

Into Golgotha’s nailed arms

To spite God’s belligerent thundering

And slit ocean wide my mother’s orchid chastity

Just because the ugly bastard could;

That night screamed above dead stars

Diana’s muffled roar

Sapless tongue

Funeral prophecies spinning like earthquake headaches

Lashed desperation a blood licked cistern

Leaking out her cherry gashed lips

Through a blackened buffering silence

Forever cold with tinfoil bitten cruelty

When her pumpkin head nearly caved in

Greased pulp and squeezed seed eyed mannequin pieces

Splattering horror stories no one would ever know

And she feared that her children would find only bone crushed dust

Because his hitman fists were racing time like lightning;

And though he is long dead

I must declare that I forgive his sorry soul

But my mother’s forget me not tears

Still get mistaken for rain

Whenever the devil’s thunder digs up his unholy name.

no is not an answer

is a rejection

of daring

a fear to explore

beyond the edges

of your existance

no

is a self defense mechanism

when the challenge

is greater than the heart

dares admit

no is everything

you have chosen to fear

when the dawn

whispers hello

For operation:

Place Tab A into Slot B

Shake well; and repeat

.

.

.

i think i told you i wanted to break up

or to kill myself

same thing

you parked the car

and got out while i stayed inside

seatbelt buckled

you yelled and i’m cried

i don’t need to remember to know

it snowed on the way to pittsburgh

i thought it was pretty

i don’t need to remember to know

i always think snow is pretty

i’m remembering myself

sometimes, these days

i’m not sure if i said anything

or if we’d agreed to silence

i don’t need to remember to know

you hated every word from my mouth

i think we were late to the concert

i don’t need to remember to know

you were mad at me in the hotel room

i wore a nice leather jacket

and stuffed pills into the pockets

left my purse on the sidewalk

you didn’t tell me anything was wrong with me

only that you hated talking to me

i don’t think we went to the candy store

even though i wanted to

but i don’t need to remember to know

you would’ve yelled and i would’ve cried

you would’ve paid and i would’ve gotten chocolate

all over my hands and the leather seats in my car

you would’ve gotten mad and driven faster

all i have is the picture from the toll booth

i got in the mail

we didn't take many photos by the end

when i stopped looking like myself

i swore i'd be pretty again or like myself again

we talked a lot about forever and commitment

and love so

i thought about our engagement

but never our wedding

i thought about your funeral

i would cry and plan a eulogy

in my head, i never told you that

i’d wear my pajamas to the church

because i was always wearing pajamas or

nothing at all

i was never happy enough to wear anything else

i couldn’t pick out clothes from my closet

or look at myself in the mirror

when i wasn’t there at all

it was easy to plan ways to cry over you

i don’t need to remember to know

how to feel so sad

and nothing else

to feel sadness in place of self

you yelled and i cried

because i was someone else

but i wasn’t anyone else

i wasn’t myself

or at least i didn’t want to be

i think i told you i wanted to break up

or kill myself

same thing

or stay together forever

or kill myself

same thing

the only thing i miss

is how you held me after

you told me you wished i was someone else

you told me something was wrong with me

i know

something was wrong with me

and i’m sorry

i don’t remember saying i’m sorry

i don’t need to remember to know

i’m always sorry, i’m still sorry

for breaking up and staying together

or killing myself

same thing