membrane [begin]

"membrane - A membrane is a layer of material which serves as a selective barrier between two phases and remains impermeable to specific particles, molecules, or substances when exposed to the action of a driving force. Some components are allowed passage by the membrane into a permeate stream, whereas others are retained by it and accumulate in the retentate stream..."

saturday, august 8 6:23 a.m.

i've been lying in the bed since 5 a.m., my phone the lone light in a room drunk on darkness, the low hiss of of the oxygen gliding through the tubes curled around my face, a plastic mustache containing my next few breaths.

i have to pee.

yet my body is a book of throbbing torment unwilling to unfold from it's position of semi-comfort where the stinging pain of unforgiving skin has left it imobile like a chalked silhouette of a dead drive by victim on my bedsheets.

i have to pee.

my breathing, once an assumption of normalcy because i was 37 and relatively healthy, is now faltering as i contemplate the long walk from my bedroom to the bathroom...a skippable 25 feet away a few months ago, now feeling like the 100 yard dash when tethered to a 40 foot tube connected to an oxygen machine.

i really really really have to pee...

the light from the phone is out and i'm a puddle of punk curled into the covers, willing my bladder to wait a few more hours so i don't have to maneuver through a maze of manufactured facial manacles meant to maintain my breathing as i trip to the toilet. i squeeze my thighs tightly, as if the pressure will somehow crystalize the urine until the sun rises. i begin rocking, hopeful i can just use gravity to shove it back up whatever tunnel it came from, another strategy that usually works but as the past few months have shown me, my body has become another vessel and therefore, old strategies no longer apply here.

SHIT.

it's becoming a bit drastic now. my breathing is escalating in distress because now i really have to pee and i don't have much time to get there before i'm peeing on myself. i reach for my phone and hit the side button to light the way, point the light down to make sure i'm not gonna step on my breath, and fight the tears pushing their way through my eyelids as i swallow from the pain of the scabbed wounds biting my body like open mouths silently feeding upon me.

you cannot pee on yourself...you CANNOT.

my shuffle falters into a waddle as i fling open my bedroom door and make my way to the bathroom in a black hole that evidently soaked up every last bit of light in the universe.

i hope the door is open or there's gonna be one loud bang in about 3 seconds...

i whip up my gown and fall upon the toilet just as i lose control of my bladder...

and.now.i.can't.breathe...

see, another thing i learned...one doesn't have to be able to breathe to pee.


this is sooooo not how i anticipated the monumental moment when i would decide to begin writing again...