At last …        they
Shoved a hook up my skull,
and I watched my
cerebellum
Seep
out of my nostrils.  

I’d spent,
too many days
with lumps of pink pulp pressed
against the parietal, nerves         strangled by 

sleep-deprivation, a mind
too shaken and sloshed for science. 

I’d been dangling for too long upside down from tree limbs and monkey bars,
Blood rushing and bruised, I was
a headbanging,
Sugar-surging circus clown
who lobotomized my way through
Life just
to find out this is what
Einstein got wrong and the
Egyptians got right.

I’d rather be
mummified than
mutilated, rather my heart reside in Canopic jars than my brain be
mounted on
museum walls, and
measured on microscope slides,
Because I cannot fulfill these
Formaldehyde fantasies.

I’d rather my eyes be
Squished on a citrus reamer
for all the
Light they’re worth,
a juice to be
sprinkled with the
Zest of grated bones, drizzled over my bandaged body, so I’ll be smiling in the
Sarcophagus, with lingering echoes in my chest

This is all
I’ll take to the afterlife.
You can keep the rest.