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Description
Heartbeats are callused fingers, compulsively tapping
on plain, white tables. They are flies trapped between
panes of chest, repeatedly slamming into thin glass barriers.
They are purposeless feet (without rest), always bouncing up
and down against red linoleum floors. They are not still,
or free, or aware of any options; pulse caught in the dull ache
of a seamless throb ringing out through bones—or is that just me?
Once, I locked eyes with a stranger, and the blood came
cascading down my arms, filling my ears until the only sound
was the dripping faucet heartbeats that won't be fixed.
No plumber or doctor would take on the job, "I'm afraid,
the pulse is just too erratic. You'll have to slow it down."
I was given a blue-plastic barrel, hollowed out with cotton interior,
a handful of slow-me-downs to whiten the paste in my mouth
and keep these hands from collapsing buildings, ringing necks.
All because this clump of hardened muscle doesn't know
when to shut the fuck up, because a shadow passing
on the sidewalk hits a nerve, because a blank face asks
questions from across the waiting room and my tongue swells,
limp and pink, lolling across the coffee-table books—
I probably smiled, dimples carved out of my cheeks, no sign of teeth
while heartbeats crashed wildly against thick bars of ribcage;
the Maybelline monkeys who were fed up and ready for revolution
(without words). I filled sixteen blue glasses with the sweat of my palms;
translucent rivulets, streams of unexpected encounters, bubbling over
the sides and leaving puddles to wash and wash and wash,
without ever being clean, skin left raw and exposed and trembling.
If mercy exists, these heartbeats will kill me, and time spent
looking over my shoulder, turning five different locks,
taking painfully hot showers, erasing emotions again and again—
none of it will matter because I will be gone,
and they can't get at you when you're asleep.