Lessons from Mom

The proper way to pee on yourself:

Can you get to a secluded area?

If yes: go to the secluded area

and skip to stanza three.

If no: do you have a few friends that can stand

around you and hold towels? If yes: arrange

the friends and towels around you. (If no: lean

forward and drape a towel over your rear end.)

Now that you are in privacy,

is the area in need of neutralization

below the waist? If yes: skip a line.

If no: skip to the next “if no:”.

Is the sting on the inside of the leg? If yes: fold

the affected leg under you and angle the leg

until the stream, when released, is positioned

over the affected area. If no: is there a cup or bucket

nearby? If yes: grab it and position it between

your legs. If it’s not yours, deal with the

consequences later by informing the owner

that urine is sterile. You have a short window

of time before the pain reaches black-out

levels. If no bucket: cup your hands,

one at a time, to harvest as much of the stream

as possible to slather on the affected area.

When you are in position, release the

stream. Continue administration as long

as you can, even after the pain subsides.

Healing needs more time than relief.

 Megan Wildhood is a creative writer, scuba diver and saxophone player whose work includes a poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), which is about sororal estrangement; essays, fiction, poetry and nonfiction that have appeared, among other publications, in The Atlantic, The Sun, and Yes! Magazine and a novel in progress.