eat aortic

to make an omelette, you have to crack a few eggs.
humpty dumpty eat your fucking heart out.

though we know it is a hazard of living - that there is no opt out clause for the final destination - no one likes to be reminded of their mortality. perhaps we do, falsely, for a moment of weightless adrenaline fuelled abandon, but not truly, when it's completely out of our control.

i think of heroes,
i think of the shrapnel in Tony Stark's heart,
i think of emblems on the chest,
i think of your scars and of how deep they have cut into you.

i never had the guts to hear you say
that before 1948, the 5th July,
we may already have said goodbye.
it's hard to appreciate the miracles of science
when faced with a scalpel and a thousand tubes.

there is a set of hands
that can make ends meet,
but first they have to break my friend
and put her back together with wire and metal.
and when i think of her tomorrow morning
at 8am when they make the first incision,
she'll be splayed open on the operating table,
my beautiful friend,
ribs akimbo,
and they will begin.

they'll open her chest,
displaying her like a gaping flower,
like a window,
like a bloody well.

then they will stop her heart,
and for those minutes i will muster
all my residual superstitions and spiritual tendencies
in an attempt to steer fate towards excellent tailoring;
in an attempt to convince myself of some position of power.