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Heartless [not poetry]
by S.J. TylerI was born without a heart. No one believes me but its true. I never wanted one either. Apparently other people had them, or they wouldnt be referenced so often. I guess not having one was a bad thing. And I was supposed to want to have one. Just like everybody else. No one is supposed to want to be different, but then again, I didnt even know I was different. Michelle made me realize that. She made me realize what was wrong with me.
Michelle was my best friend when I was twelve. We were so inseparable that we went to buy our first bras together. In the lingerie store, our mothers picked out two pairs of plain white training bras for us. They shoved us into the first available dressing room and waited outside. We were both so new to the entanglement of straps that Michelle sort of twisted herself up in hers, and I didnt know how to help her. All of the harnesses had trapped her and, I could see, restricted her breathing. Our mothers still waited outside the dressing room, and I could hear my mothers foot tapping impatiently, pressuring us to show her the goods. Michelle managed to get her straps straight but the training bras soft cups were still lopsided. The tapping grew louder outside.
Girls! Theres a line halfway around the block to try things on! Hurry up in there! My mother was the Queen of Exaggeration.
Were trying! I yelled back, for Michelles sake. My mother could cause anyone distress. Nervous Michelle kept tugging at clasps and straps until I finally reached out to shorten the left strap. I only grazed the top of her breast, but I felt it. I heard it. A fast rhythmic drum. I nearly fell backward. Quickly, Michelle caught on to my attempt to fix her strap and did it herself.
We ended up buying the bras and continuing on for ice cream. Her previous panic was quickly forgotten in hot fudge, while all I could do was stare, wide-eyed, at my maraschino cherry, in wonder. What the hell was that? I was terrified for Michelle, to have that noise inside her. It didnt sound healthy. I had never heard a sound like it. Surely it wasnt normal. The women chattered on, oblivious to my stunned behavior.
That night I cracked open the dusty World Book Encyclopedia that rested heavily on our bookshelves and looked for a map of the human anatomy. The female in the drawing looked placid standing there completely nude, which I thought seemed odd. If someone asked me to pose for cross-sectional views of my organs, I might look a tad bit more nervous. Then again, she seemed to have nothing to be bashful about. All of her organs were present and accounted for. Perfect models, I guess thats why she was the model and not I.
Right under her left breast was a round red muscle, called the heart. Ok, I know this, but whats wrong with poor Michelle? Reading more about the heart, I discovered that it pumped blood to the rest of the body and that it pumps faster when a person is stressed or frightened.
Wow
Wow. I was stunned.
I began to worry about myself. I had never felt that drum before. I put down the encyclopedia and dashed down the stairs. I ran up and down several times, knowing that I should have been out of breath, but I wasnt. I searched frantically for signs of pulses all over my body. I found nothing. I ran down the stairs one more time and in my haste, kicked the book down with me. It rumbled down the staircase, hitting each and every step with a thump. I knew right then that there was nothing to find. A book sounded more alive than I did. I bet the beat came from that diagram. Shes mocking me. I could never be the anatomical female model in the encyclopedia.
Im a monster. Im cold like the Tin Man. Maybe its a good thing, because I could never have posed calmly like she did.
And I wont pose! Dont you come near me; I dont want to feel you and your pulse mocking me. The Tin Man wanted a heart, but I dont! Im cold because I have no blood in my veins and nothing to pump it through them if I had. You just keep reminding me of how cold I am with how warm and alive you are, even when trapped in two dimensions.
Im falling into a deep spiral. Im afraid of a drawing. I snapped the book shut.
In class... my attention left my body. I was gone, and the other students knew right away. All I could hear were murmurs and all I could see were bodies of heat moving closer and closer.
I have no heart. Im a monster.
Someone get the nurse! Did anyone see her eat anything at lunch? Maybe she was dizzy
The voices trailed off into a blur.
I woke up in a hospital room. The beeping and the humming of machines woke me. I started to pull tubes off of me, and I pulled out the intravenous needle. Why are they pumping things into me when it wont matter anyway? What are they pumping? I left the room and ran as fast as I could until an orderly caught me tight in his arms. Everything went blurry again.
She wasnt well, Michelle said.
I never saw it coming. I mean, I never even thought anything was wrong, until she went to the hospital.
She paused in thought.
She never told me she loved me. Or her father. Whenever we said it to her, she gave a hollow nod. That was all.
That wasnt all. She told me things. Crazy things. I usually thought she was joking.
Pause. Speak. Like what? Good Dog. Heres a treat.
She wrote a story once. About when the two of us were a few years younger. I saw it in her diary; it was about us buying bras together. But we never did. Not together. Almost everything I saw in her diary was fiction. Twisted. She never knew I saw the book and I couldnt ask her about the stories
I think she thought those things she wrote were really what happened. I really think she did.
They both started to cry. Not hysterically but not sorrowfully either. They were tears of confusion for the one they lost. Neither of them had really known her and they both knew that. They just knew that they were supposed to cry when things like these happened, things that they would never understand.
After the hospital, my parents took me home to a refurbished room. They had a private bathroom added just for me. They did not understand what had happened to get me admitted into the hospital; neither did I. Coming home gave me neither a rush of feelings nor explanations. Worried that the event had made me frail or something of the sort, my mother reached out to help me up the stairs and back into the house. I jerked away from her. I saw her round red heart. Her face became placid and familiar. She looked like a diagram. Dont tease me with your almightily perfect organ!
I felt dirty from the brush with her skin and so the new shower beckoned. It was a shower bath: roomy. As I stepped inside, I felt that I would never want to leave. It will make me warm, and help me forget my frozen self, I thought. The water was strong and warm. Its blood, it looks like water but it is really blood. They did this on purpose. They want me to be just like them. They dont want a monster for a daughter. They are trying to turn me into one of them. But they do not know that their touches feel like sharp razor blades against my skin. Only, I am just like those razor blades. The new razor blades resting on the side of the bathtub glint at me. I am one with them. They know what it feels like to constantly be pushed up against dirty human skin, and to be sullied by human blood. Maybe that is why everything around me is taunting me to become alive. Living things are afraid of unfeeling metal objects like the razors and me. No matter how they try to force us to change, we are resilient and stainless. Nothing they can do can truly hurt us.
You hear that? You cant hurt us! Were stronger than you are. We dont need to rely on fragile flesh and veins to keep us moving. We are strong all alone! I crouched down at the end of the tub as the shower sprayed at full blast, and hugged the razors close to me. I felt the warm hard spray turn into blood again and wash over me. I felt the beating of dozens of little hearts on my back. I can resist you. We can resist you together. I hugged the blade closer, losing it in the tight fetal position of limbs that I had assumed. The wash of blood was too strong for us. Pouring over my back, onto my knees, I felt my veins open up and take in some new fluid. So now Ive finally got a heart. I feel it now, so it must be real.
03/03/2004 Author's Note: Please help me with constructive criticism.
Posted on 03/12/2004
Copyright © 2024 S.J. Tyler
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