After their treatments
I woke empty and blind
as an egg, so fragile
I had to be careful
not to break anything
that didn’t belong to me.
I forgot my own name
but no one else’s.
Nothing would stay with me.
All my old associations
were bled out
reduced to strangers
I’d swear I never met.
What good was this cruel robbery
supposed to do?
Make me more careful
to stay inside the lines
and stop complaining
before you can come up
with another cure
worse than this.

—
Mary C McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has had work included in many online and print journals, including Expound, Third Wednesday, Earth’s Daughters, The Evening Street Review, and Caketrain.