Not everything I write ends up getting published. Sometimes things get cut from the final draft. “Patchwork Man” is one of those unlucky “darlings” I had to kill off.
Like with my first three collections, I thought about adding a poem to Falling Apart. Not a sonnet, like what I usually write, but a less structured poem that plays around with form. It was fun to write, but ultimately it was not a good fit for the collection overall. Although I fought to keep it – for a time – I took this strange little poem out of the final draft.
So, with Falling Apart coming out in less than a week, this month’s short story for the blog is the one that didn’t make the final cut.
Here I sit, a Patchwork Man
All alone
Understand
I am made of pieces of the ones that came before
Skin is grey
Maybe green
All the colours in between
As it sloughs away from what is left of all my bones
Here I rot
Still I live
Nothing left inside of me
Save unending hunger for the meat of all my kin
I am but a mystery
Science has no
Place for me
I just want to die but they won’t let me if I beg
Marry Shelley’s Frankenstein
Never could
Be my match
I am far superior in every way that counts
Although I will feel no pain
In my soul
In my bones
I know that what’s happened is a plague upon this earth
Lose an arm, leg falls off
Eye pops out
You get the gist
They will just rebuild me with whatever parts they find
I was legion
Now am one
Don’t know who I was before
Nothing but a starving piece of meat upon a slab
Who
Are
You
To
Tell
Me
What
I
Am
First they had no name for me
Now I see
What is real
They were never going to let me have a happy end
Poke and prod
Fill the cup
Beakers filled with dried up sludge
I’m the first, the last, so they will tear me all to shreds
Science needs its answers, see
They don’t care
What I did
All they care is that they can prevent some more of me
So I scream
Rip my chains
Left an arm behind, oh well
All that really matters is that I still have my teeth
Bite the first on the throat
Hear them die
Gurgling sounds
Boy, that tastes so good it is my first real meal in weeks
Kill some more
As I please
I am what you’ve done to me
Maybe you should all just learn to leave this shit alone
Science comes with consequence
Here I am
Not for long
Gunmen in the doorway aim but miss the vital parts
Hit my brain
The only way
What else would produce my death
Did no one watch a movie in the years before The Fall?
Here
It
Comes
The
Taste
Of
Death
Again
