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Life by a Thousand Cuts

Life by a Thousand Cuts I seem to have an unintended calling: cutting my fingers in awkward places. I’ll be washing dishes, for example, when a thought surges, making my mouth grimace and my fist flex inside the glass it's scrubbing, and if the glass is old and therefore weakened by sinking sand, it will burst into fragments, and the water will run red over gushing knuckles that remain senseless for the moment prior to pain. Or I’ll be placing a fat bouquet in a vase and forget the razor shard on its chipped rim. I’ve even been known to bleed on pages from paper cuts, lunging for Band-Aids while trying to remember lines. Everyone is tired of my bandaged fingers and are suspicious of my hands and where they’ve been. But it's only that I’m in such a hurry, and we don't have a dishwasher, and I know that beauty lingers yet in damaged things that I have to drive myself occasionally for stitches, weeping on the way when the cut is deep, then watch the doctor squint and bend like a tailor with thick black thread, mending my garment of skin. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png JAMA American Medical Association

Life by a Thousand Cuts

JAMA , Volume 301 (8) – Feb 25, 2009

Life by a Thousand Cuts

Abstract

I seem to have an unintended calling: cutting my fingers in awkward places. I’ll be washing dishes, for example, when a thought surges, making my mouth grimace and my fist flex inside the glass it's scrubbing, and if the glass is old and therefore weakened by sinking sand, it will burst into fragments, and the water will run red over gushing knuckles that remain senseless for the moment prior to pain. Or I’ll be placing a fat bouquet in a vase and forget the razor shard on...
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Publisher
American Medical Association
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.
ISSN
0098-7484
eISSN
1538-3598
DOI
10.1001/jama.2008.985
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

I seem to have an unintended calling: cutting my fingers in awkward places. I’ll be washing dishes, for example, when a thought surges, making my mouth grimace and my fist flex inside the glass it's scrubbing, and if the glass is old and therefore weakened by sinking sand, it will burst into fragments, and the water will run red over gushing knuckles that remain senseless for the moment prior to pain. Or I’ll be placing a fat bouquet in a vase and forget the razor shard on its chipped rim. I’ve even been known to bleed on pages from paper cuts, lunging for Band-Aids while trying to remember lines. Everyone is tired of my bandaged fingers and are suspicious of my hands and where they’ve been. But it's only that I’m in such a hurry, and we don't have a dishwasher, and I know that beauty lingers yet in damaged things that I have to drive myself occasionally for stitches, weeping on the way when the cut is deep, then watch the doctor squint and bend like a tailor with thick black thread, mending my garment of skin.

Journal

JAMAAmerican Medical Association

Published: Feb 25, 2009

There are no references for this article.