pain made pretty

yea, i'm back.

as some of you already know, i was out for a while, negotiating in behalf of one of my most vital organs. sadly, i had to let half of it go, to save the other half. i'm a conservative when it comes to most things concerning the state and stability of my internal organs and my sanity, but i had to admit that these ones (little organ parts) had to be taken out. they've been wreaking havoc inside my tummy for a while now. so, much as i grieve over the space they vacated, and which can never be filled, life has to go on. forget about it. no use crying. there's probably a moral here, somewhere.

but, a while ago, as soon as husband weng left me to my own devices, i limped to the bathroom, peeked into my bandage, surveyed the area around the cut, touched the wound, tried to feel for the vacant lot behind it. i felt like a spy, a voyeur perversely, secretly excited at being able to view somebody else's private sordid property. (or, iba lang effect ng drugs sa akin).

it's fascinating how the skin is like a palette when it bruises, preserving evidence of colors mixed. there is now a very faint purple-blue-green around the wound. so, i am posting this poem simply because...



Making PurpleBy Dan Chiasson

Nibble what nibbles you, play dead, play bored;
play sad, shell gaping, like the cockle used for bait;

like the melting purple eat the mud, be seen through
like the pebble purple, light and soft like the reef purple.

Imagine yourself suffusing a woman's gown or sheets
your bloodstream running through a king's inkwell.

Those rich dyes once were your ideas, your love
of broccoli rabe. Half-killed cockles attract purples,

the reef is littered with open mouths waiting to snap.
I am trying to make my pain attractive, my yearning

pretty. A man caught me in a fine-ply lobster pot.
He scalded me until I nearly died, then threw me back.

I gape like this because of the ordeal. Did you foresee
this moment, where what you intended to devour

devours you? Did you know they'd haul us up
into the suffocating air, our bodies fused together?

He wrecked my body so that it looked like need.
You made your insatiable greed appear like love.


(thanks to all who visited, brought flowers, fruits, sweets, poems, books, anecdotes, prayers.)