The teenager at the corner store grabs my Newport shorts and asks for my ID, like we haven't done this a thousand times before, like I'm not in a hurry to see you, and he looks real hard at my license which the state of New York has not-so-wisely entrusted me with, and asks me if donating my organs hurt.
No, not too much.
I didn't need my stomach because I only use it to eat my way through your absence, a peace offering to the rumble of longing. My liver was already on its way out from drinking my
way through the better part of the last four years and the early part of this one, and what does a spleen do? I can tell you what a pancreas does, but I didn't need one of those lying around, taking up space in my living room, leaving dents in my sofa cushions and changing the channel without consultation.
I didn't need my eyes because I can find my way around your body by touch even in the darkest of rooms, I gave away my nose because your scent was firmly embedded in a place found beyond my olfactory nerve.
I gave all these away freely, laid them over sleeping crackheads so they wouldn't freeze, I gave my liver to a wino whose ascites was getting too big for his clothes.
My heart was a gift, but I never gave it away. I didn't have time to wrestle it back from the man before you and exposing these things to the elements just leads to oxidization and rust, and do you know how hard that is to get off? I just let it be the porthole from which my psyche waved at you, and when you saw that I was sinking you could call in an SOS from afar. I was okay with this arrangement, and had the legal team drawing up contracts to be signed and notarized all in the name of protection.
Then I told you that I didn't want anything for Christmas, because I didn't need more space being taken up by things I didn't need, but you showed up at my door anyway, with the smallest box I've ever seen, and when I looked inside, all that was there was our hearts, mitral valves opening and closing in perfect time.
