The Pajama Party

Poem by LindaAnn LoSchiavo

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Pajama party! That’s what I was told.

My tonsillectomy would be performed
In secrecy, as if three-year-old me
Was cast in a mad scientist movie
In outerspace, my tonsils evil orbs
About to be ejected from the craft.

Lab-coated men held something to a face.
A teenage girl collapsed like limbless wind,
Defining dismal actualities
In real time. Party?!  I planned my escape.

I shrieked —but chemicals mislaid my thoughts,
Eclipsed, colliding in strange galaxies.

Was this an alien abduction dream?
They say in space no one can hear you scream.

Anesthetized, lift-off left me speechless,
Unharmed —though trust, naïveté dislodged.

Suspicion, like a reckless meteor,
Trailed icy finials of new found fright.

Infected tonsils buried, I survived.
But joys I’d once found access to had died.

My parents reappeared to drive me home,
Where ice cream domes, balloons, and toys were meant
To mend, enjoyment lavishly supplied
So I’d forget they lied — their betrayal.

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LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a native New Yorker and award-winner, is a member of BFS, HWA, SFPA, and DG. Her 2024 books include Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems (Wild Ink), Apprenticed to the Night (UniVerse Press), and Felones de Se: Suicide Poems (Ukiyoto). She has received the Elgin Award for A Route Obscure and Lonely and the Chrysalis BREW Project’s Award for Always Haunted.