Escape Velocity

By Patrick Meeds

When the anesthesia wore off

the first thing they asked me

was do you know where you are?

Six months under all that pressure.

I guess the diamonds come later.

That’s not how it went for my father though.

He went from we have some bad news

too I’m sorry for your loss quick.

My mother was a different story.

That was like watching someone

fall down the side of a mountain

for twenty years. Now I have another

hole to fill. Another scar that came to me

while sleeping. My friend says if you never

go to the doctor they never find anything

wrong. Then if your smart you’ll live

your life like it’s the peak of hypothermia

when you take off all your clothes

or the moment of ecstasy

right before you drown

all the time.

Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Main Street Rag, and Nine Mile Review among others.