When I became Johnny
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
I had a poison clam once long ago,
she had a name, but I didn’t ask,
it was one of the those times when
I just didn’t care and threw caution
out the door and feasted on a woman
who had genetically changed run-o- the-mill
viruses into something with a will to
kill,
I.V. antibiotics and a hundred and four
fever for 10 days, I baked in the madness and tried
to fondle the nurses—still hoping to get lucky,
the priest came every morning and evening, praying
making god a witness to my mutation,
the doctors would talk, but all I could hear
was muffled and serious, they all wore their
masks and rubber gloves and stood at a distance,
one made the sign of the cross and stood further
than the others,
I remember my throat was swollen shut and there
was blood drying in my ears, I felt like a blimp
floating in a haze of nurses and doctors and technicians
and cable t.v., the only anchor I had was dream matter and
that hardly helped,
when I left the hospital I considered my plight, I was not
the same man, not the same species, that bitch had changed me
into something else,
I think that’s when I became Johnny.
J. Masuda © 2005
she had a name, but I didn’t ask,
it was one of the those times when
I just didn’t care and threw caution
out the door and feasted on a woman
who had genetically changed run-o- the-mill
viruses into something with a will to
kill,
I.V. antibiotics and a hundred and four
fever for 10 days, I baked in the madness and tried
to fondle the nurses—still hoping to get lucky,
the priest came every morning and evening, praying
making god a witness to my mutation,
the doctors would talk, but all I could hear
was muffled and serious, they all wore their
masks and rubber gloves and stood at a distance,
one made the sign of the cross and stood further
than the others,
I remember my throat was swollen shut and there
was blood drying in my ears, I felt like a blimp
floating in a haze of nurses and doctors and technicians
and cable t.v., the only anchor I had was dream matter and
that hardly helped,
when I left the hospital I considered my plight, I was not
the same man, not the same species, that bitch had changed me
into something else,
I think that’s when I became Johnny.
J. Masuda © 2005
