Tonsillectomy

What can salt water do,
When Opioids have failed?
Pain currently
Has my life derailed.

It’s a childhood memory:
This pain, while I swallow;
But it’s so intense,
I cannot even wallow.

How do I explain it to you?
It’s like a pincer stabbing,
When A trickle of spit travels –
A shock – a jabbing –
A crescendo – unravels.

It’s a finger being cut,
Slow and steady;
But in the throat,
When I am not ready.

I wonder, if this is
Some penance I must do?
So okay, I shall suffer,
If I have to.

Pain, I know has a life,
With its ebb and flow –
I’ve made a memory,
With its undertow.

So on with the squeeze,
My remorseless throat,
Today, I shall sink;
But on the morrow, I float.

The Beginning

It starts with little things:
A shout in a conversation,
A caress shrugged off,
A turning away in sleep,
Or a small promise
One forgot to keep.

It starts small:
A forgotten holiday,
Or a hug once a day,
A letter never written,
Or a word one needed to say.
A refusal to touch
After all,
Speaks more than words
By not sleeping much.

It starts quietly:
No great feeling of loss,
Just a tingling warning,
A squinting of the eye,
The littlest lie,
And then there is
Destiny’s pulling back,
As it starts to die.

Do Not Touch Me

Don’t touch me,
If you do not want to.
I am more than
My love for you.
It may be full,
It can be blind,
It is what elsewhere
You will never find!

I am beautiful
And I am kind;
I have a heart;
I have a mind;
I am my body
And though it wants you –
Do not touch me,
If you do not want to.