You’re Started Over

Phineas did not miss his job
pounding stakes into the ground.
He too, forgot who he was
and had to re-learn –
 
Here is business enough for you, they say Gage said –
his doctor, unbelieving.
He learnt to love the iron pin in the head.

What it did for his celebrity.
Maybe he liked the attention
which comes from being
an anomaly; a miracle of neuroscience.

I imagine in 1848
Cavendish needed some amazement.

It was just
another way to end
another work day;

Another way
our insolent brains
insist on
making us who we are –
lest we find ways to
shoot holes through them.

So – if you don’t like
the little voices,
or the static
or the chatter
in your head:

1. Get a friend
2. pack the TNT
3. into a hole
4. tamp down with metal rod
5. bend over

5,4,3,2,1 Boom!
You’re started over.

Elisabeth Horan

 

Elisabeth Horan enjoys talking with animals and stargazing with tender humans. She can dance a decent cumbia and aspires to sing like Selena. She has recently been featured in The Feminist Wire, Anti-Heroin Chic, Quail Bell Magazine and Algebra of Owls.  Elisabeth’s work aspires to give a voice to those who may be suffering alone and in pain. Elisabeth is a 2018 MFA Candidate at Lindenwood University and teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.