The fact/s of being broken (Originally Published in Unbroken Journal)
by Jessica Harkins
PTSD Post-Op
Low lights darken a post-op room where I wake unable to pull my body back together. An icy fire divides my ankle into an archipelago of infants wailing. I cannot keep their screams inside the box of my leg or foot. They spill like light through the cracks. A face close to me does not want me to sleep, clearly thinks sleeping is something to be ashamed of. A woman’s face, young, like one of my students. “Jessica,” she calls. “Jessica, time to wake up,” and my leg falls back apart, up to its calf in fire. The surgeon pops his head in; he asks “how is she” then backs quickly away. He said the leg would be numbed I keep trying to tell the nurses and my husband. I can’t be the only person to come to in this state. Maybe the nurses and the doctor say these things on purpose, trained to toss them like flotation devices into a void. Maybe one will reach me. I don’t know what I might be saying aloud as the nurse close to me insists, a little edgily, you’re going to have to walk home soon. The leg is impossible to keep hold of; it will not close; and she is telling me I will need to walk. Somewhere near my abdomen I open as wide as a suitcase: two halves of me sprawled in the air: I cannot pull my skin back around me like a story. I am screaming again or crying, so open I cannot breathe; my darkness on the outside and everyone standing inside of me.
* * *
HR Request Letter
I do not have a story of healing for you. I have a story of why I need to ride my horse to work. You say it’s unreasonable and I say I have missing pieces. I say I won’t be such a mess. It will be less work for you. It’s like something happened when I was very young. So young that what happened took up a third of my life. So now, I expect that thing to happen at regular intervals. A third of my day should be spent enacting rituals to ward off loss. A third in fear. I don’t want to behave like this, but I do. Not if I have my horse though. The horse keeps me here and now. I have to pay attention. The horse will let me know when something is wrong. And if a good-looking guy pulls over in his car, the horse will look at me and say I won’t fit. A dog would do this too. But I’d need a really big dog, a scary one. Huge dog. Dire-wolf-size dog would be ideal. By then it’s practically a horse, so. This letter has changed so much since it began you may be thinking I have lost it. But I am just finally finding what it is I am asking for. Your apology? No, no. I just want my horse.
Jessica Harkins, a native of rural Oregon, currently teaches creative writing and medieval literature at a small liberal arts college in central Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Her first book of poems, The Paled Guest, was published by Kelsay Books, and her poems and translations have appeared in journals such as Copper Nickel, Interim, Versodove, Cimarron Review, and Exchanges Literary Journal.
Her first (bilingual) chapbook, Jukebox, is forthcoming from Bottlecap Press.