A Skirmish (With My Least Favourite Body Part) — Angela Brett's poetry show on JoCo Cruise 2021
Channel: Angela Brett
Date: 25/04/2021

I skip the next poem due to being nervous about time (but then I end up doing it after this one, thus ruining my amazing segues.) This is the period I warned the audience about earlier. It’s called A Skirmish [With My Least Favourite Body Part], and you can get it on my album, here: https://angelastic.bandcamp.com/track/a-skirmish-with-my-least-favourite-body-part The album gets its name (Wake Up Gasping) from a line in this poem. The poem is also available as a printable poster for both ISO and US sizes, with the words written in blood (it's a set of pdfs, so whether you print with actual blood is up to you) over a schematic of a uterus, at https://www.etsy.com/listing/533545275/a-skirmish-with-my-least-favourite-body

My body keeps my brain alive, 
like worker bees in sentient hive. 
Each organ helps the whole to run. 
Every part, except for one. 

One part seems to want me dead 
and murmurs in a monthly threat 
to hurt, disgrace, abase, efface me, 
kill me off, but first, replace me. 

Replace me from its own interior, 
for I, the brain, am deemed inferior, 
and if I should refuse to mother, 
this vengeful organ cues a smother. 

Smother me in wracking pain. 
Smother lifeblood from my brain. 
Smother till I stand no more 
and wake up gasping on the floor. 

The floor of where, I can’t recall. 
I try to move; I hit a wall. 
Blurred from lack of air, I force it in 
till eyes perceive the restroom porcelain. 

Porcelain face with skin torn open. 
Stumble towards the ibuprofen, 
The mirror where with sore red gut 
I tend to where my forehead’s cut. 

Forehead cut, lump, one black eye, 
but you should see the other guy! 
Been bleeding now for seven days! 
For one more month, it’s scared away.

The full show is at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ-l6mr1dW0gVK9y3KGCNuwUADufNqmNk