This is the best ice I’ve ever tasted. It must be like that one ice, from Rally’s? Sonic? That ice people go bonkers to just eat on. Everything past these curtains is blue and white fuzz. I can’t see anything. Not like I can be missing out on anything besides some nurses walking around. There's like this one restaurant people go to for just because of the ice.
Go To For Just ow oww Jesus Christ! Is that the catheter? It’s probably not the catheter but it better not be the catheter! If it’s the catheter then this is exactly what I had imagined. Tubes where tubes should not be. I can’t even do anything about it, is the worst part. Except eat-- Except eat ice hell yeah! I think that restaurant makes the ice special, though, so this is probably not that kind of ice. But this is still some good crunching ice, like some middle school sporting event giant plastic bucket filled with mini apple juice cartons and ice kind of ice. This is still some-
Shit, a nurse.
“Hi.”
Why do I sound like that? Did they stick something in my throat or is that the drugs? Has it been six minutes yet? Click. Rats.
“Hi, d’you want some more ice, sweetheart?”
Would she know what I was talking about if I asked what it was that smelled like diapers?
Is asking about the tubes that snake across the commercial ceiling tiles good conversation?
I could use some conversation. And Ice.
“Uh. Yes please. It’s really good ice heheh.”
God that laugh. As if she needed any indication that that was a joke. Except she would need indication because that wasn’t a joke, really. She’s leaving.
“Haha, yeah, people find the ice helpful. Be right back.”
“Thank you.”
Wait. Come back. I’m Verás. Goddammit. Has it been six minutes yet? Click, beeep! Nice! Hopefully, they’ll let me keep this thing on for the whole week. [[Really loving the opium button.]] Back to doing nothing but eating ice and thinking until someone decides to approach me again.

The thing about being in the hospital is when someone approaches you it’s about fifty-fifty whether they’re gonna give you more ice or do something unpleasant like give you a shot or a catheter. The idea of a catheter might make me itch but thinking about the incisions hurts on an existential basis. If everything looked the way it used to, I’d know exactly where the pain was coming from. But not everything looks the way it used to. They might as well have cut and folded a delicate origami snowflake for all I know. With a big wiggly catheter jammed in. Oh thank god.
“Here’s more ice, want me to take that empty cup off your hands?”
“Suure!”
Sounds like a sick old man. Just think of something to converse about before she’s ah she’s headed off again.
“I’ll throw this away and then we can work on getting you out of the PACU.”
This place looks exactly like that show Scrubs.
Click.

Click.

"You didn't miss much. They took the blood bag out."
It was just a rubber tube stabbed through my pubic triangle, connected to a silicone ball someone squeezed like a bath toy to generate suction.
(straw sucking sounds)
It looked like an engorged tick with its tongue dipped into a fleshy mound of uneven hair, sipping away amidst the tangle of bloody gauze. You know it was a fun apparatus to remove because one nurse was there solely to hold my hand.
"Your what?"
“They pulled my funny blood bag. Now I have two belly buttons.”
“Oh, the drainage pump. Two belly buttons! Technically three, by that logic.”
“Owww yeah true. How did I get so lucky? Anyway they said that was the worst I'd have to be awake for.”
She's heard enough about the catheter. The only thing bringing it up will do is make my brain fold over on itself like clay being kneaded. Concentrate on the leg squishers.

“Can you pass me that ice?”
“Sure.”
This doesn't help nearly as much as it did when I was blasted on painkillers. I wish I could just talk all day about my dick getting sliced and mixed up like a Rubix Cube because it's really all my mind’s on right now. I'm feeling pain on parts of my body I know I don't have anymore.
I just kind of wake up and don't move my legs out of sheer instinct, using my arms to pull myself around until I come to my senses.
I just sorta shift my weight around pipe cleaners and bendy straws.
My memory doesn't serve me.
It serves water you have to move your teeth for.
A hymen you have to break with a scalpel.
It starts one way and ends another.

No hotel concierge would chastise the desaturated girl carrying a urinary drainage bag like a gucci clutch purse for wandering around the lobby eating complementary holiday cookies all day. The discomfort offers the comfort of an excuse, just like the comfort of knowing this thing comes out tomorrow offers the discomfort of sweet Jesus how are they gonna wind up yanking this thing out of me.
Step. Step Step. Ow.
Step.
Step Ste

I’m lying in half of a newer bigger bed writing an impatient song on my phone. I like the sound of this pad but There's no way to lower the delay on the free version of this- ow oww what? Ow! It's not the catheter. Forget the catheter. If it was the catheter that would be incredibly unusual. The catheter never hurts outside the gauze. I'll bring it up tomorrow, could it be phantom pain? That would honestly be really funny. I'm being haunted by the ghost of my own dick. Ow! Aughh, it feels like electrolysis. I really was operating under the assumption that that was as bad as it got wasn't I? Smart one! There’s not as much detailed medical equipment to stare at as there was at the hospital. And now the sky is turning gray and I'm only eight measures in because I never bothered to learn how to change keys.
Let's see what kind of drums they have.

After it came out everyone was laughing and joking because I made the mistake of creating a laughing atmosphere by laughing too much. I laugh when I'm scared and also when relieved and also when a surgeon is pulling off-yellow packing gauze out of my neo-vagina like a clown would remove an obscenely large handkerchief from her lapel. Anyway that was that and this was this but the important thing is the damn catheter is out. They lied about the blood bag being the worst part, and no nurse for holding my hand either! I should probably get back into this conversation.
“Yes, it is a relief!”
“Yes, I'm happy!”
“Oh yeah, it's everything I wanted and more!”

“Yes, I do like the look of it!”

Being raised within walking distance of coastal fishing piers has enabled me to see a decent number of fish in varying states of decay. I'd anxiously avert my eyes to protect myself but deep down I'd contemplate how their organs and flesh homogenize as they decay. The hot wet air did a lot to make them look less like fish and more like detailed stains on the boards of clean recycled plastic.

I have no reason to keep my legs so still but I do anyways.

“For one whole week my life has been about nothing but piss. I've lived a piss life and piss is my legacy.”
“That implies your 'piss story' ends here, the catheter coming out means you've got a whole new chapter of peeing ahead of you.”
“That's true. Got some big Piss Moments to look forward to. And of course I'll keep you updated in excruciating detail.”
“Oh of course. How else would I keep all my notes up to date? Wouldn't want to go without knowing about all your piss.”
Ow! Oww! It was not the catheter, I knew it!
Some cerulean flinch coursed along my seams.
I probably don't want to pat down the cocoon in the middle of this gray valet streak. It’s only just occurred to me that I hadn’t been outside this whole time until now. No profound satisfaction or sense of relief came from breathing in the sharp air. It's just cold out.
"So you're out now!"
"So I am."