Permission

I enlisted the services of a team of surgeons
to carve my heart out
of this cavity"my community chest.

With jabbing knives they cut
and cut and cut and cut
freeing the muscle this sack of feeling

covering their
shiny plastic aprons with clots of my blood
(stringing spraying splattering)
Their raving maws open"a vein and watch it blue"with delight.

 DING DING DING

The strong man strikes the bell, the carnival jeers echo in the surgical amphitheater
to watch my dissolution"
step right up and see the sideshow attraction
the girl with no heart she walks and talks like an automaton
but no longer feels"
They watch while munching caramel corn that gets caught in their teeth and
sucking candy apples that stain their teeth red.

After closing time I walk around
like an x-ray
lit up and exposed
wires hang out from my skin and entangle in the passersby
They trip and scream extract themselves from my
tentacled arms that reach.

Careful, the mothers say to their children, it could be catching,
This acting from ingrained reaction, the memory of an organ no longer there

                                    negative space desperate to be (ful)filled.

They did more than take"
with malformed bones I trip along off-kilter
and bamboo shoots of pain

light me up.

I wanted this;
I want this;
I want this
I want
I
?