frankenstein’s monster in the passenger

by Sascha Sizemore

i have seen dead things broken

on the side of the road

split open down invisible lines

called tragedy if called anything and

i have traced the seams on my skin

from scalpel and scissor and my stubborn

refusal to just fucking give up and i have wondered

what that makes me, if we solve for x.

there are seams no one can see all over me

stare downs with bottles of painkillers

loneliness into a noose and my foot on the chair

daring the world to let me kick it, words more painful

than my broken jaw being wrenched forward on pullies.

my blood is fifty percent pharma paycheck

give or take an orange bottle or two. show me a dead thing

and i will show you a reflection through a mirror, darkly.

they say my survival was a miracle.

wasn’t it’s alive

a miracle too?