BLOOD RUST
BLOOD RUST~ by Tara Armstrong
Blue Lux, my most Crimson
of truths.
Where logic overrules emotion
confronting a confounded
fracture of
practice, a rupture from
one's breast.
Incisions ooze chaos
revealing beauty
as they break down wounds
to their
etiology, a darkness that's
been dwelling
within for decades.
Dearest Surgeon, grab
your spade—
spare me your scalpel—
release me
to the dirt. I don't know how to
flirt with
life any longer. Don't hand me
your displaced
hope. My mutation is strong,
depression stronger,
don’t you remember what you
saw under
that light whilst you filleted me
on your table?
Paring down the mounds of
flesh, skin
sympathetic to surgeon’s steel
—my cage;
blood-rusted shut. Don’t let
my deeply
anesthetized smile sway you,
it's my mask.
You're familiar with those,
aren't you? There's
no light left in me. You should
have called it.
Death has been a way of life for me. He
came for my dad, but refused
to let him wave
goodbye to me. You came to
remove the death
of my father so I won't become
him. Bye-bye
breasts. I sound so ridiculous.
This carving
has somehow killed the rest of
me. I don't
recall you warning me about all
of the potential
afters. After there will come
sharp pains. After
there will become what you'll
see as just remains—
remains sad,
remains withdrawn,
remains silent,
remains hopeful for that
perpetual black knight.
Death becomes that pink
ribbon, a reminder of
how she didn't have cancer,
but had the cancer surgery. Death of her breasts
killed friendships,
her job, her marriage, her
dreams, her family,
her.