"All the Places I've Peed"
by Amy Sexauer
When my pants were frozen because I had fallen into an icy river, I peed in order to thaw them. I sawed off the top of a Gatorade bottle and peed in the passenger seat of our moving HMMWV. In a Gatorade bottle in the back seat. So many Gatorade bottles. (None of said Gatorade bottles were thrown at civilians.) I’ve peed in a trash can. In porta potties under the watchful eye of dick drawings. In an Afghan kitchen because there was a drain. In the middle of a wide-open desert. I’ve peed incorrectly into a Thai squatty potty. In a specimen cup. In a specimen cup while someone watched. I peed in an outhouse on a hill where I could see the sky peeking through the hole in the ground. I’ve peed into a trough where I watched my waste merge into a stream. I’ve peed into a diaper. And my daughter’s kiddie potty when she wouldn’t get off the toilet. Behind a dumpster. Crouched behind an MRAP tire larger than me. In a catheter bag. Into a pad. At the Louvre. At the Vatican. In the Coliseum. A truckstop below the Great Wall. In the Gulf of Aqaba but not the Dead Sea. At least two oceans. All over my hand while trying to use a She-Wee. Into many wide mouthed beverage containers, usually in the back of my truck. On the side of many highways. Hovering over airport toilets. Crouching under my steering wheel at a National Park. When the infil was long and I didn’t want to ask anyone to stop, I just peed my pants. I was sweaty anyway.
Amy Sexauer is a poet and author of Poppies published by Dead Reckoning Collective, from which this poem was taken. She is a West Point graduate who spent nine years on active duty in Military Police and Psychological Operations units. She is currently in the Army Reserves. You can listen to our Savage Wonder episode with her here.
Follow her here.
Learn more about Veterans Repertory Theater here.