Springtime.

I have a computer in my body.

It folds out of my breast like a pack of cigarettes in a back pocket. Eventually I’ll be worn in. Its wired edges press up beneath my skin. Its intelligence clicks inside me.  I am metal warmed by blood. I am blood woken by metal.

It roots down, with a long arm, into the center of my hot-beating heart.

This week the seatbelt grates over it. The skin presses onto the wires. The wires eat up into the skin.  Some itching is normal, my doctor said. He also said Careful, they can saw their way through, and then we have trouble.  I cup my hand over the box. I try not to feel where it pushes.

Trouble. I’ve had enough.

It’s springtime. I drive past the hospital most mornings on my way to work. There are cheery flower planters. I stare at the third floor. It’s almost been a year. I do not feel safe. In my nose, the smell of saline. We’ll do a flush. Then the heparin. Then a flush. Keep your IV clean.  I clutch my arm protectively. Out the window, rotting soil struggles to life. There were five steps to the bathroom. I cried out as I dragged my IV stand. I shook and swayed with the pain. Saw shapes instead of men. You have to eat, they said, but I could feel only my own bones.

Then slowly, the passing of something I couldn’t name.

I sleep curled beside a window. The old tree, giant and wordless, leans over the bed.  Some mornings I wake full of sweetness. The stars are in me, the thick ancient blankets.  Then some mornings, darkness. The winds surge, wild and slippery, into my veins. I wake wide-eyed knowing Death.  He sniffs at my clotted organs. He knots his tongue around the wires and threatens to pull. I do not plead but lie silent. Long ago he claimed me for his own.

It’s springtime. I run my fingers across the scar again.  I think about thick wire slipping through skin. Red pulp. The insides of me aching to join the outsides.

Put your lips here, upon the wire.  Understand.  To love me, you must also love death.