I want to go under.
They tell me it will be okay,
But they don't know what happened last time.
I remember it all.
Chilling grating in my head.
It still hurt when I was frozen.
I want to go under.
What will they do to me this time?
I know that I'll survive,
But maybe I don't want to remember.
I thought laughing gas was supposed
To take the pain away.
I want to go under.

    My first day alive also happened to be my first Christmas. I haven't been able to escape the story of how the nurses brought me back to my parents in a large red stocking after I was washed. Every year, the stocking hangs in our house's tall wooden stairwell along with a few knit stockings which belonged to my father's parents. I can't help but wonder if that stocking will hang there in the years to come. This year is...