I am not certain what else could matter more
when I am split open,
spilled forth,
splayed out,
my flesh growing cold,
a kind of self-inflicted frostbite
which is more precious than the limbs —
the broad arms, the sturdy legs and aching feet,
the bowed back which strains under a mighty load,
the wind-roughened cheeks and the distant gaze,
the softer smiles and the straining lungs,
the individual fingers and toes,
each its own master while inextricably twined,
and the stout, ever-bruised core,
the overfull and hollowed out heart —
freezing over, one by one,
shutting them down and carving them off
like there will always be more,
like I will find a new set of ribs in the bargain bin
and start over at a discounted rate,
my great noseless face a monument
to greed and grasping and arrant grift,
rusted out and cracked down the middle,
my body a wretched sepulcher to what matters most,
an answer unvoiced, spurned but self-evident,
self-defeating,
while I am split open,
spilled forth,
splayed out,
at my own bloodied hands.
Helen Doremus is a screenwriter and storyteller based in Los Angeles. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Helen has come to most things in life slightly sideways of the prescribed fashion, accumulating odd bits of life as she goes. A choral singer, a kung fu practitioner, a Santa Fe Johnnie, a fiber artist, a high school dropout, a CASA volunteer, and a member of the asexual community, Helen’s first published work was a wordsearch celebrating the 25th anniversary of Sesame Street and her first film was as an unnamed child in a movie that was never released. She is a recent graduate of Antioch University Los Angeles and the screenplay she wrote as an independent study while attending, “Romanza,” won fifth place in the 2019 Launch Million Dollar Student Screenplay Contest.