If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry so -

A poem about having a mouthful of ants

If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry so

I press the body, this body, flat to the floor,

small-of-the-back push, thick ache, back of the head is wailing.

I have a mouth full of ants and I need to scream about it

but that would be one vibration too many and -

did you know

some painkillers

are administered

anally!

I’d like to make a dirty joke about it, I’d like to, I’d like to,

but mum’s face - holding in tears - she’s trying to tear the pain off my bones,

like stripping wallpaper,

to hold it in her hands and gulp it down instead.

I say:

Can you turn off the lights please?

Out loud, she replies:

But she means:

Daughter do not send me away and tell me you’re fine,

fine is not skin to tile, slurring words like you’re newly drunk

and slowly folding yourself into something unreachable.

So, do not send me away,

should I take you to the hospital, daughter?

I put my hand on top of hers, feel like my arm is falling off,

shake my head

and tell her the hot doctor doesn’t work on Sundays so:

What’s the point?

Ah, she doesn’t like it, presses her mouth into ghost-white thinness.

I hear the crunch of grinding teeth, I don’t like it, and I give her a slow,

stupid wink, hold my eye down for a little too long -

I want to put my head into a meat grinder and dissolve into

gooey strings with no nerve endings.

I tell mum she could fry me up like a burger, I wouldn’t mind!

And she goes:

What do you mean?

And that’s how we learn I’m in delirium,

which means the painkillers might just be pain-killing,

and mum presses her mouth to my forehead -

it feels like

she’s nailing me

to a crucifix

and I nearly make a joke about it, I’d like to, I’d like to,

but she’s a god-fearing woman and I fear nothing but my own stupid body.

So I’ll make us laugh because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry so

I force it, I force it:

I can’t handle a whole day of being ignored in A&E mum, not again.

I promise mum, I’ll let you take me if it gets worse.

You have

full power

of attorney

mum.

They can do whatever they want after they

Give me the good shit.

Could do with a boob job, look at these tiny tetas!

Mum interrupts, tells me:

Don’t joke about your health! God help us.

My daughter is unhinged,

just like her father.

But there’s a shadow of a smile,

like someone drew it on her and then erased it.

She runs her hands through my hair and it feels like

I’m made of water.

I close my eyes and beg my body

to become liquid and forgive me, forgive me.

Someone’s shoved a balloon between

my face and my skull -

they’ve inflated it to the point of bursting and a part of me

wants to burst with it. This dance, it is too draining.  

Mum tells me she’s ‘keeping eyes on me’, maybe I can sleep through it?

But behind my eyelids there is a jungle burning,

heat rising in the form of tears.

They’re little needles pushing at the membranes

I think, but don’t say:

(This whole ordeal is only just beginning.)

My mother is a lot of things.

But she cannot put out forest fires and if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry so

I push it, back to the floor, chest cracked open-

I’m a self-performing surgeon!

I swallow the marrow of me

-it’s the exact taste and consistency of an ashtray-

I’m doing it, I’m doing it!

I keep my eyes shut when I say,

Mum, did you know

some painkillers

are administered

anally!

First published in the anthology, Chronic(les), by Blood Moon Poetry Press