Ode to Lobotomies

Oh Lord above, let it happen, lobotomize me. I sang like I did when I used to be a cloud.

"Lobotomize me," sang the cloud. Its voice wept like a willow tree blanketing the sky above.

Mom would glare at me, but she never looked. It stung when she stared, and it stained when she didn't. Could you see her, or did she run away too quickly? - like a life remembering its play before an oncoming train draws the curtain and its headlights blind the audience.

I remember when I was a little older, I sat on a stool so low to the ground it might as well have been a grave or rose bed. The doctor stood so far above me in a shriek-white coat he grinned "you must be confused, I wouldn't wish a lobotomy upon anyone."

You see, I remember waking up like a spring rose from a seed. I remember the butterflies in my stomach and feeling like you know exactly who you are, no matter whose hand you're holding.

But my wishes have withered away, cold like a sigh, dreams are now ghostly smoking dry ice. All the seeds have spoiled, I'll see the sun no more. I remember bliss, but I cannot feel it, nor could I tell you its name, what it smells like, or tell you how high I could have floated on it.

My soul is not mine, stolen away, my spine is a worm all flaccid like, broken by the weight of feelings gone by, I am nothing but the stench of slime having forgotten my values. Splitting headache, splitting burned hairs, splitting everything.

Oh Lord above, let it happen, lobotomize me, I sang like I did when I used to be a cloud.

I'd fall to tears when my dreams played hallelujah on my umbilical cord, but I can't hear it anymore it's all just sick blind bliss.

But I could be a cloud again. I wouldn't sing, I wouldn't feel, but boy would I fly. I wouldn't be myself, but I wouldn't know that. I'll sunbathe in a rainbow of colors, a chameleon on a rock, and even though as I soak I couldn't tell you what it meant, but I'll tell you now it means everything to me.

You don't need much to fill a hole. And sometimes if you cut a soul free, and let it fly in the brisk autumn air, it may whistle in that wind.

And even though I like the dead leaves below me, I couldn't care, I bet as my soul flew the wind would whistle through and it would sound so close to a song, that I would cry if I still remembered how. Crying not in worship of my lingering sadness but in remembrance of what beauty was.

Oh Lord let it happen, lobotomize me sung the cloud, sung your neighbor, just a few cracked footsteps away. Lobotomize me sung the canyon that god carved as gentle water flew through it. Lobotomize me sung the cloud.

You with that beautiful beat of a whole heart, you who still breathes in dreams will cringe and shiver at the thought of what I need to do and damnit good for you.

I still sometimes I hear myself, like cackle from deep inside, I shudder, has the screaming found its way back? I shut the door but I still hear it creaking, I must escape what lies inside.

Lobotomies to me are like fireworks bursting and forgetting the sky. Lobotomize me like a breath of fresh air and all sighs let go. Lobotomies are like love itself.

And still, I sing: Oh Lord above, let it happen, lobotomize me, and what right has the world to stop me.

For more articles by Your Neighbor, click here. To get in touch with this writer, email neighbor@surrealtimes.net.


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