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@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ weight: 2
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fit: true
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---
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<div class="verse">It is surprisingly hard to think something real
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<pre class="verse">It is surprisingly hard to think something real
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when every indication, every word, all you feel
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tells you that that must not be the case.
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There's no easy way to make yourself face
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@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ Not because you do or don't so much as because the hand fate
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dealt you. You had the job, you had the insurance, the means.
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You made the call. You took the step. You passed the screens.
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<strong>You</strong> did this.</blockquote>
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</div>
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</pre>
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<!-- I don't think it hit home that surgery was real until six weeks beforehand. Not that I thought it was not going to happen --- though there was some of that, of course --- but that it was something truly surreal. Some unknown and unknowable procedure would happen, and then I would be on the other side. It was almost eldritch: I would close my eyes to miss the madness and awake changed.
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@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ date: 2019-11-01
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weight: 4
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---
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<div class="verse">There are so many words that could be said
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<pre class="verse">There are so many words that could be said
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about the preparation for surgery, all those steps that led
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to that six-thirty AM call. The days of purging.
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The anxiety. The drive. My husband's gentle urging.
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@ -15,11 +15,31 @@ the being so scared that I was reduced to the barest core.
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There was nothing left of me but fear, not even a name.
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I could still drive — the fear was quiet and tame —
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I could get us to the ambulatory surgery waiting room.
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But beyond that, I was a non-person. A convict. My doom
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But beyond that, I was a non-person. Or convict: my doom
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was in their hands.
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<blockquote>Non-person? Doom? Give yourself at least some credit.
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You still had agency. You still had a choice, could have not let it
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happen. You say of travel that getting you there is their job:
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you felt the same here. You crossed the doorway and let this mob
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of nurses do theirs.</blockquote>
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</div>
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And that's exactly what happened. I crossed that threshold,
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and then there I was: a patient before a team ready to handhold.
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At that point, I was no longer bearing all that weight.
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I was able to relax and let them guide me, a piece of freight
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working through a system. I even had a barcode to scan.
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Some gabapentin. My belongings in a bag. A rundown of the plan.
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An IV, and a second after the first missed. Meet the surgeon,
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then the anaesthesiologist.
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            I felt myself then a virgin.
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I was at this point being prepared for some strange sacrifice,
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a process of pain and cutting, of rebirth. A cut, a slice,
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and I would become something more...what? Mature? More complete?
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Where I'd never put stock in virginity before — so obsolete —
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it fits well, now.
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<blockquote>It's the penetration. It's the being opened up. The breach in tegument.
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There is change implied in the loss of virginity. Something elegant,
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something beyond just the physical. Maybe it's maturity,
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maybe it's a coming of age, or even some strange aspect of purity.
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It's a one-way change</blockquote>
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That no-going-back-ness
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</pre>
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