It’s for My Own Good

It’s for My Own Good

I lie fetal on the treatment table, and you squeeze my hand, stroke my temple. Your job today means soothing me—I can’t believe I’ve agreed to this—

I didn’t want to seem ungrateful or that I wasn’t trying to get better or that I didn’t care, so I said, “Okay.” Now, I’m letting this doctor stick long needles in me.

I’m pinned in this thin paper gown, tense, and you, a stranger, stroke my head as my mother’s done while this doctor pushes each thick needle

into my hip and back and his assistant who smells of spearmint pushes and pokes my skin as each slides in to help find “just the right spot.” Each needle burrows

a tender tunnel. A cheese grater now, I’m filled with too many ragged holes stuffed with saline. Tracts throb when the metal’s removed. The doctor does it again.

And, again. The Venus Fly Trap extract this doctor said would numb the pain doesn’t help at all, but you, a nurse who looks like my fourth grade teacher

Mrs. Goulding, gaze at me and whisper how brave I am and how much you know it hurts and how after it’s over, it will be better—it’s for your own good.

And I find myself soothed by your whisper, your tough: these slow invasions; the therapist’s kneading of liquid that ought not exist; the workouts and shots to follow—

perhaps I will survive. Your voice hypnotizes—I believe, finally, this bulky saline solution designed to tear my tissues apart will dissolve, and we rebuild my body, myself.