Blood and Guts

Today I took a little bit of adderall and decided it’s time get comfortable with blood and guts. Once in a creative writing class we read a novel about a woman in medical school and I told my professor I had to skip the sections about anatomy lab, where they peeled the skin off the cadavers and gouged out their eyes. He told me that someday I would have to take care of someone and that I can’t be so squeamish then. I said you’re right but this is really a whole different issue. This is a blood and guts issue, not a caretaking issue.

My friend Tim is going to medical school soon, and I think it would be nice if he and I could bond over blood and guts. Next time we’re together and encounter someone’s blood or guts we can say Hey! Look at that! Blood and guts! I’ll ask Tim what type of blood he thinks it is and he’ll probably say O positive since that’s the most common blood type and he learned all about it in medical school. I’ll say I also think it’s O positive because that’s my blood type and that blood looks just like mine. Tim and I will probably high five because we agree and are probably also right about the type of that blood.

Onto the guts. I hate guts. My grandma once tried to feed me liver, and on a few occasions I saw my dad roast a whole pig on a spit and then slice its skin and muscles off its skeleton, leaving only the guts and the bones that housed them. For a while I went vegetarian because the meat at Kenyon was always grey and chewy, but I stopped that because I lost too much weight. Then I decided I wouldn’t eat red meat on account of all the blood, but I stopped that too because my grandpa took me to a fancy steakhouse, and you can’t order chicken at a steakhouse. I refuse to eat dark chicken meat, even though an ex-friend of mine once told me the white meat is only white because they spin the dead chicken around really fast so the centrifugal force gets all the blood out. I don’t think that’s true, and I only choose not to eat dark meat because it looks kind of nasty.

I am picky when it comes to meats, but not at all when it comes to vegetables and nuts and seeds.

Fruits too—not picky there. I don’t like cantaloupe or honeydew melon but that’s it really.

I am all blood and guts, though I try not to think about that. There’s flesh under the skin and there are veins full of blood but it’s only red when you lose it because it comes into contact with oxygen. Otherwise it’s blue.

I am the constituent parts of a human body and the soul that floats above it.

I am the square root of negative one. I am imaginary. I am i.

I am a million pieces of sea glass, polished, washed ashore, gathered.

I am the dust that blows in your eyes on a windy day because you forgot or lost or refuse to wear your sunglasses.

I am hard to get in touch with. I am ignoring you.

I am hurrying home because I have to get the milk in the fridge.

I am clearly thinking about you more than you’re thinking about me and I’m done with it.