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by Gus Peterson

Every time you cut me, I lose a piece of myself. Every time I thought I could read you, I slapped myself awake. So hard the ears ring. A war movie in which the bomb has just  gone off. Once, I punched my temple and saw stars, a goose egg rising like an island from its sea. There’s a diagnosis – Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Disorder. The truth is, I was angry about dying. Its simulation. My character in pieces across the screen. It’s true: I’m not very good at killing others but I’ve bitten my nails to red rivers over the killing of others. Pushed a flame licked pin into the bed where a small infection festered in its bubble. And everything has burst. Tell me, where is the peroxide to pour over this wound? The way it sizzles and spits like a bowl of Rice Crispies, like my palm after grasping a metal spatula left on the too hot O of a stove. The mouth such a dirty place, the voices in the game taunting even as these knuckles embossed their face. Truth is, everything was better then. The decline of an empire nothing more than an idea shoved into the bottom drawer of a think tank desk, an AM radio band howling its long-hauled white noise at the moon. Can it stop, this ringing? A thousand push notifications of the dead and soon to be dying. The tips of my fingers a bloody smile. I watch another video on YouTube of a cyst being drained. There’s a term for it – morbid curiosity. No diagnosis yet. Like the doctor, I should probably wash my hands. Refill that prescription. How long since I’ve ached for a fever? What’s wrong with us someone comments beneath, a laughing-crying emoji at the end instead of a question. 

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