heart

I want to rip out my heart

not in an overly gruesome way, 

although I suppose there wouldn't be any way to make it not gorey and terrifying

I don't want to do it because I'm sad,

I don't want to do it because my gerbil died 

or because some boy doesn't like me back

but rather I just want to see the thing that powers me

the one little mechanism that makes all my machinery spark and whirr and chime

sometimes I suck in my stomach as far as I can,

until my stomach is not there at all, 

and reach my hands underneath my ribs

it's surprisingly easy, easy to feel my own skeleton

and I think about piercing my warm flesh and rooting around in the cavity containing my lungs,

pulling and tugging and ripping until I find my heart

slowly, gently, I'd pull it out, 

hands stained with crimson blood as I cradle the still beating organ like a dead bird found on the sidewalk 

that thing was inside me, I'd think to myself

that thing made me whole