It is the blade that teases my skin,
my fascia, my muscles, my veins;
coaxing them to open and display all
to the one-man crowd.
It is the blade that cuts me, that pries me open—
baring the peritoneum, the Peyer's patch, the pancreas
—exposes everything and nothing,
there is nothing that has not already been seen.
It is the blade that saws through the sternum,
unlocks the ribcage, frees
the frantic bird between my lungs.
you treat me like your frog specimen in eleventh grade.
It is the hand that crawls over my skin,
caresses my thighs, my hips, my colon,
holds me tightly as I fall apart in flakes
like a cooked fish.
It is the hand that strokes my face,
smearing blood like paint
across my eyes, my lips, my cheeks;
an artist pouring inspiration onto a canvas.
It is the hand that holds my heart,
that bears the last expansion and contraction
that proves my death
of the experiment you took so lightly.
