The Vicious Ache

The Vicious Ache

For years, and I mean every day,
while closing the bread,
scratching bug bites,
smoothing my hair,
doing my scheduled tasks,
a vicious ache,
insipid and scientific,
lit my wet sternum
aflame.

I rubbed it with the heel of my hand.
I had it checked with electric machines.
I said,"Fuck,"and chewed the inside of my cheek,
when I ripped off those EKG stickers,
for years, and I mean every day.

They couldn't find anything.
I knew it didn't live in the world of
hypothesis and conclusion.

It lived where The Wild Things
roared their terrible roars
and gnashed their terrible teeth.

"Doctor, do you believe in shamanism?"
This pain is in another country, and you can't find it,
but I know just where it lives.

It lives where things are curiouser, and curiouser.
And in the middle of my chest, at the same time.
Yes, Doctor, it lives in two places. At the same time.
Yes. Two places. At the same time.

I couldn't see a psychiatrist.
They gave me an economic, beige, broken-hearted social worker.
I listened to her problems.

In my own time,
I took a pirate ship to a gypsy,
a scary gypsy, with loose eyes.
The gypsy told me to pull the rope,
to heave the rope, but not cut it.

Of course, I heaved it. I heaved, and heaved, and heaved the rope.
I cried, and heaved. The skin got ripped off my gentle hands,
but there is no giving up. I heaved the rope until my shoulder
muscles burned, and my back.

At the end of the rope, was my heart.
Yes, my heart.
Well, that is what I am telling you,
I can't control what you think.
If you never read a children's book, it isn't my fault.
Your imagination is stunted.

My heart was tightly clasped,
in jaws...no not jaws...
in strong, silver feathers.
The gypsy said my heart was "bound".
With bleeding hands, I unbound it.
I cried a little on it, and wiped it off on my shirt.
I think it was okay.

I paid the gypsy, she was a scary gypsy,
with a lock of my hair.

When I got home,
to a hall full of junk mail,
to my cell phone ringing,
to the garbage truck,
it felt fine.
For years, and I mean everyday,
the vicious ache,
insipid and scientific,
was gone.