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SURGERY | Noah Todd Wooten
I was allergic to pain when I was ten.
The nurse chuckled when I told her,
in all seriousness, before my hernia surgery began.
Gutted with fear ‘til I gulped the gas.
Carbon monoxide days have passed.
As simple as breathing.
Safety, my reply when the gun shop cashier
asked the purpose of my purchase.
Hid under my bed. Dying to be used.
It became an expensive Christmas gift
after the pulled pork dinner.
Shredded like the skin I hid under
a tattoo of Zen Buddhist symbols.
Siddhartha said Life is Suffering, I concur.
Let me speak as the eighty-proof burns.
Failing to immolate memories.
Scripts handed out like post-it notes.
Tolerance grows with every sip, slice, pill.
Misdiagnosed by my adolescent self.
Skilled at pain. An addict now.
Prepped for death.
The scrub green gown covers the
stitches beneath my skin.
It’s not a matter of if. It is a matter of when.
No one grows old. We shrink into oblivion.
Noah Todd Wooten is a poet whose work explores trauma, mental health, and survival. His poetry collection The Empty Urge documents his journey through childhood abuse, family loss, and psychiatric treatment. Wooten's work draws from his lived experience with bipolar disorder, grief, providing insightful testimony about experiences often marginalized in contemporary literature.