when I finally give in to the fantasy
of self-surgery on the bathroom floor
with a paring knife & a flask of gin

I’ll cut myself open but won’t feel
a thing	          all my emotions will
counteract one another	I’ll

be in the comfortable anaesthesia
of adrenaline	it’ll start with a slice
of the skin from the ribs to the pelvis

carving to find hidden mechanisms
that will be unrecognisable to me
but in my display of bloodshed

after the queasy have fainted
the rest will find themselves
in my organs—

I’ll spill out pints of recycled air &
germs I have collected like a magpie
put my fingers into the wound

& trace out the different systems
steadying my trembling hands from
gritted teeth & tears	 my backstreet

operation is too good to stop now
the curiosity has been killing me
but I won’t be prepared for the sight

of my liver teeming with alcohol
from first dates & the stuff of life
gushing to my bleeding liberal heart

I follow muscle to bone
god I feel it	I feel it now
the fantasy catches up on me

I’ll have made such a mess on the floor
& be quickly out of my depth
heart pounding hard		it’s a

much stronger muscle than the brain
which	by then will be a thick pink
slab	all linked together by nerves

running like ants 	till the muscles waste
but I know that when it’s my time
I’ll return as something else entirely

About the author:

Lucy Hurst is a poet and writer. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from York St John University. Her work often discusses chronic illness and disability through experimental forms. Her first pamphlet, Modern Medicine, was published by Fly on the Wall in 2021, and its title poem was shortlisted for the 2020 Bridport Prize.

Feature image by Ed Leszczynskl on Unsplash