in medieval times,

the doctor would make you bleed on purpose,

letting the wet air suck out your blood

like it alone was the poison that was chewing at your bones

he caught your body’s red vomit by the bucket

he let it hit the sky like a dagger

he knelt, tattered clothes dripping with your salty venom

and prayed he had at least saved one life

today the doctor is wearing

a white coat and whiter teeth

he can not afford to collect those crimson stains anymore

so he tells you the blood is good for you

he says the other doctors were wrong

he refuses to let your skin be slit

keep it all inside, he says, and if you catch the plague

take this yellow pill, and hope

it frightens the disease into a hiding place

somewhere within the grooves of your tired skin;

just pray it finds a way to escape

on its own

I still practice medieval medicine

my body is too small, and soft,

to hold everything it manufactures

my belly inflates, filling the cavity it occupies

my brain clatters against the fractured walls of my skull

my fingers grow pink and swollen

I choke

on my tongue

and the only way I can cleanse my aching limbs

is to use them

to create

I sit on spiked metal chairs and prick my fingers

I let myself evacuate my body

and dribble onto the pages of a glossy tile floor

acidic red marks leak onto white paper

in the form of written stanzas

that don’t even bother to rhyme

these are not words

bits of written language

defined by an arbitrary party

and learned on flashcards

these are drops of poison

that only stop existing

when I give them names

and attach them

to metaphor

I do not do this to please you

I do this to keep myself alive