Phantom Pain

Posted on | September 24, 2004 | No Comments

I know its from the surgery.

When I was much younger, and logic was a different language, I got my nipples pierced. During that time it was not uncommon, at least in my circle of understanding. Jerry, my oft-scorned boyfriend at the time, thought it a brilliant idea to drive to his shop, after consuming numerous Long Island Teas, for a little needle session. One. Two. It was done. 12G rings hung like doorknockers from my breasts. I thought they looked fabulous. So, I didn’t constrict the beauty of the rings for some time, wearing shirts that showed my “four nipples”. My favorite was a tight tank top that clung too tightly. I wanted to do me in that shirt.
During a skirmish, the left nipple tore. I don’t think it ever healed properly, but the fight didn’t help my cause. I went to the hospital a week later, feverish and worried. My left breast leaked pussy tears. The made me take both rings out and pumped me full of antibiotics.
Two days later I took the bus alone. My left breast twice the size it should have been. A loose t-shirt and a long black skirt, flip-flops, unkempt hair, carrying a teddy bear and my lunchbox, I headed for the emergency room. I told them I had an infection. They didn’t take it seriously. A dark haired doctor with a somber smile, seeing my flushed face, ushered me quickly into a room and asked me to lift my shirt. I could see her dark eyes widen, and her fingers felt cool, almost icy, as she gently tested the firmness of the diseased skin. It hurt. I winced.

Two hours later, the surgery done, I lay in a hospital room alone. I remember being cold. My breast felt like a deflated balloon. The hot, tense pain eased into a dull ache and the pressure lessened. My left side throbbed beneath a bulky bandage, but it felt better. I remained in the hospital for a week.

Years later, I still feel phantom pains. A thin, white scar circles the nipple, bearing witness to my foolishness. I like the scar. I think it makes my breast interesting. The puckered points of entry and exit bring the eye to look for the rings that once decorated me. There are other pockmarks, blemishes from endeavors gone wrong. Sometimes my skin recollects the sensation from the rings, cool and foreign. But it’s just a memory. The pain reminds me, pinpricks bringing an instinctive hand to put pressure on a wound that healed years ago, ages before this life.

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