Keyhole Surgery

By Georgia Bowan

I get a bit crooked and things go AWOL when you come around.

Gibberish? Let me explain:

A brisk brush against fate and the Gods or something foolish and wanky like that. I know you believe in no such thing. Maybe naked infected wounds or a triple heart palpitation.

I wouldn’t know though, I only know what you want me to.

I wonder if its worth it every time I paint on a face or chip a collar bone mid-fuck. Arm around my shoulder, leading me back. Leading me only to more distorted recollections, the way things were, pale faced and inebriated.

I always recall you clearly like the tip of a pine needle, if that makes sense?

Prick me in the palm or gut me down the middle. Don’t know how to approach the inbetween, the undiscovered and foreign terrains of horror. Still pink in the cheeks, sitting in your single bed and watching her enter your bedroom, your Mother gracing her with her presence.

Do you know what I think? I think you’re in love with that girl with the dark circles, I think you’re in love with an apparition you can touch with flesh on flesh. I wanted to be tangable to you but you never let me be held. Did you know that? You always did, I think.

It’s all nonsense, we both agree on that one. Fate and the stars and months churned into chemical inbalances. But I dreamt about you for so long, I forsaw how it would end and we’re not there yet (I’m certain of it, I’m almost certain of it).

But my skin, creepy crawling the rancid truth up my forearm. The signs are there.

The frontal cortex, crippled with thirst and a distorted version of a boy, now grown man, no longer pure or soft and sweet. I could’ve sworn it was you I saw at the pub the other night, on all fours crawling up the walls, teeth beared, kissing my temples and asking me why I stick around. But it was just the paint peeling, a crack in the plaster or another waking nightare.

Or maybe it’s you, in the corner, waiting to come home. A sob from inside, invisible to the exterior.

There’s no reason. I do it for null. Or maybe I do it to know you better one day. The possible or inevitable press of thumb against cheek or shrill scream against lung. Mouth on mouth, cunt on dick, palm on the steering wheel of that car you used to drive. No reason, null again.

My skin again, creepy crawling all over. It tells me you won’t extend another limb toward me. It tells me dark circles captivate and satiate you entirely. It tells me, in every cell of my body to stop, vacate, stay away and, most importantly, give up.

Still, despite it all, her eyes, your indifference, the cold demeanor, I stick around. I always stick around, in my mind, though you departed long ago, I always stick around.