Circulation
the heart pumps blood to the lungs.
this is a library.
i am the books.
the lungs pump blood back.
books live in the library.
the library is only the shell
for the books inside.
you can read the books,
you can visit the library,
but neither are yours.
the heart pumps blood to the body.
neither the books nor the library
belong to you. they are merely for
borrow, if you have a library card.
in order to get a library card, you must
file for an application, express interest
in the library in a respectful and totally
consenting manner, and wait for the
library to accept your application.
the body pumps blood to the tissues.
the tissues are on the circulation desk.
you should not need them. libraries
are supposed to be a happy place.
if you do not get accepted for a library
card, this is not your library to visit.
please vacate the premises.
the tissues pump blood to the veins.
do not take the library in vain. it is
not yours. it is merely for borrow, and
only if the library lets you borrow it,
and the library has expressed explicitly
that you are not allowed to borrow it.
the library asks that you leave the premises.
the veins pump blood to the heart.
you are not allowed to borrow the books
or use the spaces. you are not welcome here.
the library asks you to leave the premises.
the heart pumps blood to the lungs.
the library asks you to leave the premises.
the lungs pump blood back.
the heart pumps blood to the body.
the blood clots. the body is unresponsive.
you are not welcome here.
courtesy marketing pitch to Edible Arrangements™
you know that feeling,
the one where you’re holding something—
maybe a mango, or something similar
of the produce variety— and you know
that you have every power in your being to
squeeze the shit out of it and watch as the
insides work themselves from the shell
until there is nothing left inside and you
feel like a monster, except something else,
maybe a little voice in the back corner
of your conscience, says that nature
would not have given you that strength
if it didn’t think that you had every right
to use it as you see fit, much in the same way
that you always have the choice to
throw the monopoly board and all its
falsified societies and colorful currency,
to become a major league pitcher and
hurl your drink across the room until it
splatters against the opposite wall, even if
its glass conduit shatters to pieces into a
puddle of broken pieces and sharp edges;
my seventh grade science teacher tells me
that the human jaw is strong enough to
bite off our own finger, but some reflex
stops us from actually doing so, every time.
Redlining
The plastic surgery team take up their markers
and turn my flesh into a Fantasy Football league;
They each stake an initial claim— one goes directly
for the brain, pulling weeds from the cracks in my
cerebrum, one takes inventory of each sac of air
in my lungs, and one unearths each capillary
and ties them together, having heard that they could
reach around the Earth two and a half times.
They spend a while in my chest, debating
who must take the appendix, the heart,
and all the other unfavorable bits. They settle
on a chamber for each, leaving in its place
a barrel of monkeys with the cap unscrewed;
it isn’t until years later that they realize,
staring at my unarmed pieces floating
in their plastic examination jars, that perhaps
these parts were never the problem at all.