Guts by Riya Bhargava
Once I saw a dead pigeon on the sidewalk in china town.
It's blood and intestines spilling out like the hot water the coffee maker wouldn't stop pouring
That was it, people explained, a miscalculation.
As they walked past they turned up their noses.
A pigeons wing broken and curled over it's chest
Where its heart should've been but probably wasn't.
When we pass an ambulance on the street people feel the need to assure me that everything's okay.
They know that I'm afraid and I feel too much,
But a car wreck on the side of a road decorated with gurneys is meant to hollow hearts.
So when did we learn to turn up our noses.
I remember in elementary school we were celebrating a classmate's birthday.
I choked on the food and the teacher yelled at me for standing up.
I wondered how she didn't notice, how she didn't understand,
That she'd never catch the fear in someone's eyes looking down on them.
The next day in English class she told us to read every piece of the story.
Between the lines all I saw was empty space,
But it was screaming for attention.
I realized it was room to leave your heart in there.
She said, "No, that's not what I meant. You've miscalculated."
At the movies me and my friends shared candy.
Junior mints were the only thing sweeter and colder than me so I dissolved them in my mouth.
It took 50 reassurances for me to take the last piece.
The empty box felt like a loss in my hands.
It felt like apologies.
Another ending I couldn't bear to face,
So I threw it away.
None of us ever meant to be noticeable.
I looked up at a waterfall and thought it was a painting.
I said nothing this beautiful could be real.
There isnt enough in this world,
But we were so distracted by it's beauty we gave ourselves poison ivy:
A simple miscalculation.
And since then I've always kept itching
To stop romanticizing beautiful things,
And putting bandaids on gravestones.
I still can't understand when people think of death as an eyesore,
Pain a miscalculation.
It's not coping its apathy.
The pigeon is going to rot on the sidewalk,
Until someone cradles it in their hands, intestines and all,
And uses those guts to say goodbye.