Hearts

Tomorrow they crack open

your chest.

Harvest arteries from

your legs.

Give you a

Frankenstein heart.

I've been having dreams

about dying on the table.

Me dying.

You.

And beautiful white doves.

It alarms me,

knowing that I've

dreamt of deaths before

that came to pass.

I have been sitting

in hard plastic chairs.

Watching your legs

fill with fluid.

Like tree trunks that shudder

under the weight of

your body.

That could snap

under the winds of

a decent storm.

Isn't that what this is?

These last few months

have been a hail storm.

Shelter is fleeting.

I am so very different.

The rain is sideways.

It has shut me up.

In some ways I am glad

for this reminder.

That the world is bigger

than my pain.

That the total upheaval

of my life is null

compared to the

fear of mortality

I see on your face

when you holler at Mom.

When you make me leave.

And how much energy

it must take

to be pleasant on the phone

to your friends,

the nurses,

the dip shit doctors.

We are so similar.

Your genes made me a nerd.

You made me smart.

And we both have

flailing hearts.