The Clinic - Draft 2

[71degrees]

The Clinic

Attending the clinic is the closest I get to comfort.
I find the number in a teen magazine, make the call

from a red phone box like a spy or a superhero
desperate to change into something magical.

The appointment is my first chance to tell, where I learn
entire words are missing from my vocabulary.

Still the women sits, listens, takes note of me.
I cherish the moment knowing beyond the white walls

there is no one to hear this broken story.
When I return to my strange adopted home,

outside is glorious summer, but the clinic lights
still blink fake brightness. I close my eyes,

let them work. The pain is the same,
a carving knife dicing its way through

parts of me that never knew a gentle touch.
But the clinic care for me and when they spit me

back into the summer city the sting of walking
cripples less than the ache of my closed mouth.

"When I return to my strange adopted home,

outside is glorious summer, but the clinic lights"

The exchange above is awkward with a comma between them.

You have two uses of "still" within six lines…not so good.

"The pain is the same" As what?

"walking / cripples" might be okay b/c I know that's not what you mean, but it just sounds like a combination that doesn't belong together.

After all the good this clinic does for you, you then turn and tell me a second later the same clinic "spits" you back out. Doesn't jive.

You hate it outside the clinic but weather is described as "glorious"…again, doesn't jive.

Too many things that don't add up. Wonderful use of language / images at times (e.g. Phone booth/box & Superman image; "entire words" sounds strange to me, but oddly it works; the spitting image also works, just not in context with what is said earlier…if that makes sense).

Good luck w/this. I do like your use of form on the page. Stark, skeletal poetry is very cool to me.