Under The Knife

-Under The Knife-
by
Keaton Foster

Note: I am about to undergo brain surgery to have a shunt put in my head to relieve pressure on my brain. This poem is about my feelings concerning that upcoming event. Just in case, Write on!!!

Update 5/5/12 Everything went well and I am feeling great, its amazing how much I can't remember now. Much love and thank you so much for all your kind words. I am writing again and will be home soon.



Under the knife
It's about life
They say that if I don't
Then I will be dead
Long before I should.

A tube in my head
To relieve the mounting pressure
Of all that I am
A shunt from my skull
Under my skin
Down into my chest.

I am afraid
Terrified to be exact
Maybe such an event
Will make me different
Something other than
The comfortable nature
Of such livable madness.

Maybe I won't be numb
Maybe I will feel each slice
Of the surgeons blade
The evasive nature of his ways
Maybe the fact that most days
I struggle to feel at all
Has left me with a heightened sense
Of feeling something so unbearable.

Maybe I simply won't wake up
For all my pomp and circumstance
For all my flash in the pan attitude
I am still a deeply mortal man
A person who pledges his allegiance to death
As an over dramatic form of complaining
And as a way to express the redicouilessness
Of all that has ever been with regard to life.

The truth is that I want to live
I want to grow as old as a tree
I so desperately want to see
My amazing kids grow up
And become something
More than ever thought.

I am scared beyond 'what if'
For a man that never shows fear
I am certainly, without a doubt
Facing one of the biggest hurdles
Of my complex existence.

Under the knife I must go
I have no choice, not one
If I don't I will die long before my time
If I do, then there is a good chance
That I will live as long as I should.

Will I be different
Will I change beyond my ways
Will I began to feel more than I do
And will the frustration
Of who I am be relived.

The answers are unclear, but what is quite clear
Is that the pressure in my head is building
Higher and higher it races to go
Sooner or later my brain will have enough
Sooner or later it will simply cease to function
Far below the present level of its capacity and resolve.

Pray for me as I pray for myself
On the first day of May, 2012
I will go under the knife
What will happen
Will I be all right
Will I wake up changed
Or will I never see another day
Another blank page waiting for words
Crafted from my overburdened brain…





Under The Knife
Written by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2012.