Rapunzel

Her pasty white flesh is prodigous, Enough to completely dislocate her knee With a simple fall from standing, Her pulseless leg lying frightened On the table where this grown woman Whimpers like a child – But she is known most for her hair, Or the absence thereof, The tiny islands of centimeric stubble Surrounded by a sea of battered scalp Raped of its rolling, wavy color By desperate hands – Trichotillomania, They say under hushed breaths, And some will even eat it, The trichobezoar swimming in the Sewage of the gluttonous bowels – Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair – In your solitary tower You have pulled the braided ladder Down to the last few follicles In hopes the enchantress would leave you, Alone – You are alone, A spectacled-bald and banished Rapunzel Who screams in horror As my pulling hands deliver you A stable reduction.

Jason David Eubanks, MD, is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio and a current Spine Fellow in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. His poetry has been published in numerous literary and medical journals. Among others, these include JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, Annals of Emergency Medicine and The Pharos. Dr Eubanks' book, Rotations: a Medical Student's Clinical Experience, is a collection of poems, the first of its kind, written about the process of becoming a doctor. Rapunzel represents one of Dr Eubanks' more recent psychiatric poems. It emanates from a first-hand encounter with a patient as a resident in the trauma bay.

Researched by Femi Oyebode.