local anaesthesia

You'll feel some pressure.
Do you have a headache?

after ten hours of waiting, hungry and tired
with little seepages of bloody heat
i can't manage to explain that no,
i cannot feel a headache now
because i shut off my capacity to feel that
in order to stay awake, not bug out
remember times and milligrams,
that it will take me at least fifteen minutes of quiet time
to be anywhere capable of answering that question

Here, let me block off this area.

i try to tell you that i am a crier and that it doesnt hurt
but that my body is now shaking from the fatigued anxiety
you don't believe me and apologize too much.
at some point, i stop trying to respond to your statements
unless it is necessary to do so.
as you apply some pressure, some discomfort
and i feel the sensation being pulled further out of my face
and deeper into the chesnut medical upholstery
i realize that my face has been numb for hours
and that i still want it attached to me
and i resist
but i also think it would be lovely to just sleep through
the mending.  it would be a nice time to nap
and my consciousness is just getting so very far away

That one hurt, didn't it?
no, it's fine.
But you flinched.

i can't manage to explain to you that the flinching is
more in response to the image of the gaping hole
and how much the inside of my chin resembles
the disemboweled  guts of Svetlana