Papercuts

This poem is another more recent one, and it’s a true story about when I got a papercut from my notebook. I hadn’t started writing – it cut me when I opened it up – and so a poem came out.

 

Even my notebook

wants to kill me.

It didn’t slit my throat

but it did cut my finger

and now I’m injured

and immune

to hepatitis.

Wait,

I’m not immune –

I’m susceptible.

I think I’d better get me

a double shot

of tetanus;

this baby’s wild,

she’s got teeth

and spit,

a little sawdust.

My computer

once shocked me

into submission;

I never forgave it

and so I bought me

a new one.

The new one

shocked me

too.

Still,

life is a shock

to the system,

and death is

a half-arsed

partial refund,

just ask the junkies I saw

in documentaries.

They live by the second

too,

and I’m glad

I never joined in.

I bleed enough as it

without a needle pinch.