Trials And Trepanation Poem by Samantha Pearson

Thank you for coming to see me today
For listening to what I have to say

I have the most wonderful news
I've discovered a new way
To brighten one's views

Tucked away in a library proper
Was a paper plopped between two pages of a book bound in copper

A pockmarked placeholder stained with age
A simple diagram from Egyptian days

It was an article not fit for circulation
Some would call it a premature articulation
A mistake
That I mistook for my salvation
Truly, a misguided gospel revelation

Trepanning and trepanation
Lettered so awkwardly tall
Scribbled and scrawled
Barely legible
But still able to produce an audible 'Ah! '

Was it fate or folly that guided what follows
Who knows
To be honest I was so enthralled by the siren's song hollering
The beacon whose beckon kept calling
Commanding
Really quite demanding
That instead of plotting and planning
I skip the in between
And jump directly to the end
In what I would later deem
To be somewhat
Rather extreme

So with tool in hand
I did what I do
And did indeed bore a hole
Straight through
The skull
Past the bone
But before the dura
That which obscures
Surely this procedure would make clearer

The results were oh so subtle at first
Little things like colors began to burst

As my content grew
My insight did too
That which once vexed
Dots so utterly in disconnect
Perfectly aligned
To form an absolute correct
So sublime

Oh
I almost forgot
What was your name again?
No matter
It's a shame
But I have more important things to attend
Sadly none of which include something so vain
Like the assigning of letters to one such as you
The unordained

For I have reached a higher plane
My mind is free
From societal chain

Yes
If a single hollow in my head could
Then surely
(No)
(I mustn't)
But the whispers
They say
That I might
That I may
(I shouldn't)
Maybe I should?
A simple phrase
Keeps repeating
(No don't)
I...
Could...

Oh my
Yes
If I can attest
To the effectiveness
If one is better than none
Then surely some are better than one

The instrument used was inconsequential
But the resulting consequence was instrumental

Now with each new pulse of my veins
Do ideas sprout from my head pitted brain

What's wrong
There's no need to refrain
I can see the look on your face
You think me insane

Well
This is no delusion of grandeur
It is as real as my being
As real as we stand here!
And I will not stand for name calling lowly banter
With someone as bright as an unlit lantern

Please just leave
Let me be!
You never cease to amaze
I still can't believe
That I would be called loony

When I am the inane one
The utterly mundane one

I alone have been gifted and gained
A complete sanity
To cut the haze

A clarity
So rare
That you've failed to see

It's the world who's crazy
Not I!
Not me! ...

Ah
Patient 22-53B
Talking to yourself again
I see