The Artwork: Where Do You Need to Get Free?
The Poem: Wound Debridement
They say a circular wound
is the slowest to mend.
Rebuilding happens
from the outside, in.
Even when we think
we are healing,
there’s too much
friction, not enough
air, and time
starts as a friend
but becomes a foe,
stiffening tender edges
into a barricade
leaving a susceptible center –
a grisly mess we give
a side-eyed look,
slathering whatever balm
is within arms reach
and praying
for the tenderness to go away.
And 3 weeks later
(or is it one year or five or ten?)
we are forced to acknowledge this sticky
unwell center of ourselves.
A rawness held open
by the nonviable –
a counterfeit protection
that must be scoured
and scraped and hurts like the first day
your wound found you.
Such is the way
of organic reconstruction.
Don’t be afraid
to look the ugliness of your pain
dead in the eye
do not fear
the eradication of your damaged enclosure
cut it all away
and be knit back together,
from the bottom, up.