♡

I found a heart and some lungs while walking on the beach, the heart alone as big as my head. In that moment of fascination I craved to pull apart my puzzle of ribs and make them a home in my chest. I could clean out the clotted blood from the veins and arteries with a gentle brush, a pick, a spoon. Squeeze it out like sebum or thick brown red paint. Clean it in warm water.

It would feel so safe, lungs filling every crevasse of my torso instead of just one section, a heart so large I can feel it’s every beat in my fingertips, every moment a reminder I’m alive. The smooth pink flesh so soft to the touch, I could reach my hand through the cage of bones and mess of tiny ropes and globs to feel something that was firm, real, and secure. There would be no empty space, no gravity tugging on my arteries and weighing down my petrified ventricles. I wouldn’t be able to close my ribs again, but I’d be fine with them bulging out. I’d keep a spray bottle and mist them any time they started to hurt. 

The reality that I can never have that hurt, made me want to be the lungs instead and crawl into my own ribs where I could stay safely cradled as the pressure soothed me from every side, as the spray bottle’s mist cleaned away the dry ache.