Disease, Disaster, Death

I was fifteen, a nurses' aide
the work was tense and brutal
I saw things there, I can hardly say:
my first death,
my first wound,
my first penis.
I found the dead man in his bed
eyes fixed on nothing, dusty orbs,
mouth fallen open, gums like coral,
abdomen unmoving, sunken...
The wound was in a woman's leg
puckered like a kiss,
scarlet and pearl and black
smelling like roses, if roses were evil;
nurses picked the dead tissue away
with tweezers and scissors
and kept it unwrapped and open
in the dusty half light
of people who never get out of bed...
The penis was a diabetic's
only 30 years old, but puffy, pale, blind
he pinched that uninterested button at the urinal
while I held his arm
and the thing, so like an acorn made of bacon
emitted a stream of pink...
They are all dead now
and I will follow them.

The Pain

silence.  razor blade.
deliberate motions.
very little pain.
the cross-hatchings
on my left breast
slowly fill with blood.
blood has a taste.
i remember the best day
of my life--
bicycling down a grassy hill
when I was eighteen
slowly negotiating mud and thistles
getting to the bottom spattered
but with a sense of achievement...
it is good to see the furrows
in my skin
where the blade has been
and the puckered burns
that i really did earn
for i pay with mental anguish in blood
and avoid changing my slothful life.
i am not going to change
the pain is all I have.
high on pain.  matches.
flinching a bit.
red and white patches.
skin, i hate you
i want to get out
i want to get out
i want to get out

Crying Angels

Thousands of voices
saying, kiss me
all in my mind
never on my lips.
I can't remember
when I was born
long ago forever
never loved.
I thought I chose not
but I never got the chance
I don't expect to be loved
looking like this.
no parent's love
no lover's love
no child's love
no love for me.

I sit by unknowing men
and I dream and dream
they have so little to say I can see you move
I can hear you speak
happy, beautiful--but hear
have you no love for me?

Alone all through the day
brutally untouched alone
alone all through the night
until the lucky stars are gone.

I am free of obligations
no one depends on me
I gave so little to this world
it asked so little of me.

I think about how I will lie
fast asleep when I finally die
then I will not be the only one
arms crossed in a box all alone.

I thought I chose not
but I never got the chance
I don't expect to be loved
living like this.

Can't Say

Dancing with a knife
cringing till it strikes
is it worth the pain
to write with blood and brain?

I wish my face could tell
the geography of my hell
make men fall away in fear
at the scars embedded there.

I wish my very hands
could wither blooming plants
I wish my eyes were red
with tears I dared not shed.

But no one loves me yet
so I must write my heart
it is a tender thing
that I nail again and again.

Will someone hear heart's cry?
Will someone read my eye?
will you offer me some time--
nothing I have is mine...

Dancing with a knife
cutting me off from life
is it worth the pain
to say what words can't say?

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Comments for Diane Novogrodsky? E-mail her:dnovogrodsky@hotmail.com