Surgilube (Round 3)
Let’s workshop this poem about how a nurse's jerking off a patient can serve to restore our faith in the future of humanity--yes, even against the swelling tide of bureaucracy.
scent of the day: Cochise, by Havenhollow
Second wear notes, very hasty
Cochise definitely shot up to the top woody scent that I have experienced: it bests Woody Mood, Arso, Fille en Aguille, Amber Kiso, arguably all the Pinewards (even Brokilan), and so on / It has the juniper of rake and ruin which I really like. it has really good cedar like in DS Durga and it also has mesquite which gives it that Cochise flare. /malty aspect through Cochise too / The malty aspect really adds tremendous flare / It really is unbelievable but one cannot have everything and I have made choices that preclude the purchase of this (especially the 100ml level) / mesquite (teetering on liquid smoke) and juniper (gin-like) in a full-on malty envelop that reminds you of tier-one artisanal beer breweries (stout coffee and molasses that nearly gets sickly, hints of IPA grapefruit)—this is the best opening you could ever expect from just a straight woody scent, and then it goes into a tremendous cedar—you might want to yawn at cedar but believe me, there is nothing to yawn about here with this cedar. / really captures the name, especially as the leather resolve into some native american mocassin material that makes you feel like this is the smell of Jim Morrison’s Native American guardian angel
*worked slightly all over
Surgilube
Pent-up voltage jacked out of their bedridden loins
by a matronly yet martial grip (clinical only where
it counts: in resolve), its shearing twists more often
than not spicing the empathetic pulse (two high
one full, two high one full, a few fulls, and back
again, only this time less careful in the downstroke
about the balls); blankets thrashing too savagely,
the gooey clicks of amplified insect scuttle muffled
too little, to be anything more than formality, a titty
with luck popped out right at the merciful moment;
quivering relief wiped down with a wet rag magical
in its inexplicable warmth, whispered tones soothing
the aftershocks of nether bluster (but rarely slipping,
despite the mess, into baby talk detrimental to dignity)—
CCTV footage now confirms, yes, too many cases
for us to relinquish our faith in humanity just yet:
a steady stream of nurses (pink, blue), some saintly
enough to hush the most insistent eyeball nudges
to bedside wallets (“Ssh. Relax now.”), dispensing
farmer clemency upon the helpless in their charge
(old men unvisited, young men mummified in casts
leaving their every itch an immersion into stoicism),
ensouled people (more to them than billing codes)
left glowing (“Dad never looked so happy in his life!”).
Too humane (moans worked in) to be called “heretical,”
too violent (cruel bites of the lip) to be called “tender”—
such helping hands, their Kafka-pleasing nerve to piston
right under the fluorescence of corporate compliance,
safekeep the fragile hope that true respect and TLC
might survive bureaucracy’s psychopathic crusade
to sterilize all rawness and risk and spontaneity,
all authentic interaction, for the sake of ensuring
a safe space smothered beneath smiley protocol,
a space right out of the dry dream of an HR officer:
where one must say “unalived” instead of “killed”;
where “honey,” “sweetheart,” “darlin” are contraband
especially if uttered by those with “optics of privilege”;
where men must not gather too long at the water cooler,
lest the spectral history of Salem patriarchy be invoked;
where every office door must remain open even if
the student or colleague visiting you is in tears;
where discourse must follow a call-center script
as bloodless as the wall color of anti-anxiety beige;
where offering an extra shelter blanket requires
a four-page “Exceptional Supply Request Form”
signed by no fewer than two administrators;
where a burn-unit caretaker gets put “on notice”
for exceeding the 240 second sponge-bath limit,
the patient’s terror and need for a hand to hold
dismissed as irrelevant to “efficiency metrics”;
where “all employees and staff are forbidden
from bringing in outside food (including candy)”
because “unauthorized communal festivities
are liable to blindside those among our family
struggling with chronic caloric over-indexing”
(the anti-toxic substitute for “food addiction”);
where two caretakers must always be present
to deter protocol breaches, if even just leaning in
to listen a bit closer (which, as a known precursor
to assault, violates the personal-space guideline).