Poetry: “They cut off part of my lip today in order” by Ron Riekki
Visiting the doctor for a biopsy is often, inherently, a disorienting experience. Ron Riekki explores a compounding disorientation—impacted by PTSD and flashbacks—where doctors’ voices become anchor points for the poem’s speaker. In “They cut off part of my lip today in order,” scenes from the battlefields of war and VA hospital visits merge and diverge seamlessly. Images from the natural world such as the rain, the sun, the moon, autumn, and a mountain lion hunting a deer add another layer to the speaker’s visceral, life-threatening experiences. While the poem references years of difficulties navigating trauma, therapy, and appointments, it simultaneously is contained within just one moment, one appointment, and under one Black doctor’s attentive care.
Read Riekki’s poetry below.
“asbestos
coiled”
—William Matthews,
“The Waste Carpet”
They cut off part of my lip today in order
Thank God You’re Black. I told
the doctor what was done to me.
I told the doctor the room was too
small, asked if we could move.
We could move. I told the doctor
of how they would come up from
behind you, grab you by the throat,
forehead, mouth. Duct tape you.
Rain. Sun. Moon. Wind. Heat.
Everything. When the mood came
for them to own our bodies, and
I told him I can’t go to prison.
What Do You Mean? I told him
that I don’t know what I’m going
to do. What Do You Mean? I told
him that in the past I haven’t been
able to handle anyone touching my
mouth, have turned dentist visits
to rides home with nothing. Just
cancellation. Aphasia, where I
can’t even explain why I have to
leave. I remember looking up
at a ceiling with hanging model
airplanes and all I could think of
was the plane crash, helicopter
crash, how toys became flash-
backs. Then the abruptness. My
leaving. Autumn. Escape. I
feel better driving away, with
my mouth untouched. A V.A.
PTSD counselor told me, just
so you know there’s no cure
for ptsd. I think of carve and
curve. I think of scared and
scarred. I think of trombone
and tombstone. I think I think
of language too often. Coffins.
A V.A. counselor told me I’d
only have one more year to
I’m not in therapy. I have
found out that the therapists
at the V.A. aren’t good with
trauma from our side. They
are good with trauma from
the other side, not when it
comes from the person who
is sitting next to you, or was
standing behind you. I have
this vision that haunts—I can
see how immobile this crane
was before it speared a fish
from the water below it, or
a video I saw of a mountain
lion coming up quietly from
behind a deer and going for
the neck, how the deer could
do nothing then—and now
I think of how they would
come up from behind and
go for the neck, the jaw, our
necks, our jaws, my neck, my
jaw. And I tell the doctor this
and he says, We Don’t Have
To Do This Today. And I
tell the doctor that no one
Black ever did it to us.
Ducked. Exposure therapy.
How I need to do this and
he takes out a needle and
I tell him, They Did Things
With Needles To Us and he
says, Do You Want Me To
Get You Help? and I tell
him I am trying, but that
the V.A. demonizes you
if you talk about ‘us’ as
being demons, friendly
fire being a fire that they
feel they can’t put out.
He puts the needle in.
I have this vision of
what they did to us.
I breathe through it.
I say, with the needle in,
and he says back,
I Promise I Won’t.
And it hurts . . .
And it helps . . .
Ron Riekki
Ron Riekki has been awarded a Michigan Notable Book, The Best Small Fictions, Shenandoah Fiction Prize, IPPY Award, Red Rock Film Fest Award, Best of the Net finalist, Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, Rhysling Anthology inclusion, and 2022 Pushcart Prize. Riekki co-edited The Many Lives of The Purge, which is a nominee for The Eiffel Award: The Year’s Best Books on Film. Right now, Riekki's listening to Men I Trust's "Seven (garage session)."
