Composed in late 2010 sometime after my discharge from the hospital after three months of recovery there from surgeries narrowly preventing my death due to a necrotizing, burst appendix which caused my viscera to become septic.


Thoughts on Another Night of Dread

It is dark and night outside my window,
and in the soundless, lit confines of my
room I sit at my old, ivory desk

cheerless

and anxious with dread for what the rest
of another night may bring.

My ostomy bag, an abhorrent creature that
hugs precariously on one side of my abdomen,
covers my raw and fleshy stoma underneath.

Against my desire, the stoma continually oozes
feces and waste

like a sewer into the ostomy bag, which,
every seven days or so ruptures its seal
and transforms into

a stinking and rancid cabbage

whose fetid odor refuses to stop emanating
until the entire, offensive beast is immediately
uprooted from my body.

So, I sit at my ancient, ivory desk, writing
these cherry-picked words to express

the anxiety and the doldrums
of another night;

and the lonely, isolating, embarrassing, humiliating,
ego-wiping, self-esteem killing, mind-numbing,
soul-shattering, universal, all-embracing,
omni-present

stench

that weekly offends my nostrils and fills my lungs
because of a thoroughly used-up ostomy bag that
needs to be removed immediately

like an old, decaying vegetable
that has outlived its
freshness—

It is another cheerless night in the same, old
cheerless space:

the nose-blistering smell, however, is only for
another night....




Poetry by Ngoc Nguyen The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 822 times
Written on 2019-07-17 at 13:16

Tags Poetry  Poem  Life 

dott Save as a bookmark (requires login)
dott Write a comment (requires login)
dott Send as email (requires login)
dott Print text



Thank's God for your recovery.
Strong enough to share this poem...
powerful write..thank you for sharing!

hugs to you
2019-07-19



Vivid and powerful and inspiring our compassionate sympathies with anyone who suffers such a terrible ordeal.
2019-07-19


Marie Cadavieco The PoetBay support member heart!
This is really so emotionally raw.
Only those who have lived with this can possibly imagine how it feels to lose total control of this bodily function, and have the stark reality, of how obnoxious human waste really is, thrust before them every single day of their lives.

My best friend at college had to have a permanent ileostomy due to very severe Crohn's disease, and it was a devastating experience for her.

You gave expressed this with lines of random length and shape which reflect the feeling you must have had, of a life out of control.

Thank you for having the strength and courage to publish this.
2019-07-19