surgery day snapshot

Nerves make me a weirdo
I don't know whether to laugh
or cry
so instead I space out so hard
the receptionist has to call my name twice

In pre op I can't decide what to do
so I daydream, listen to music
put on an erotic cowboy audiobook
and people watch
pretending not to think about
other people's sex lives

I want to be anywhere but here
never mind that I've been waiting
8 months for this surgery

If drown my thoughts in erotica
and inappropriate thoughts about
the secret sex lives of strangers
so I don't have to think about hospitals
and this lingering fear of dying
due to some unlikely complication

I wake up in pain
spacing so hard I can't talk
my brain working faster than my body

I'm so doped out
I might was well be floating

I say random things to the nurse
checking my obs
because my sluggish body
makes me nervous

I get the aftercare sheet
before discharge  
I don't hear much after they tell me
"no sex for two weeks"
like I haven't been dying
for some fucking intimacy
for longer than I want to admit
pun intended

Nerves make me a weirdo
I tamp down on my inappropriate urge
to laugh and laugh and laugh
because despite the positive results
nothing is funny

I'm so tired of being untouched