Before we even knew
What we would do to her.
I was the one to slice
The scalpel into her stomach,
The first one to peel
The layer of skin away.
We lifted chunks of skin
To reveal her insides—
Pale pink like the bubble
A pig-tailed girl blows
From her five cent bubblegum.
Her black fur tinged with gray hairs
Settled into puddles of water,
Formaldehyde, and some blood
That did not get plasticized.
My plastic gloves were coated
With her juice—more of a slime,
Really, at this point—the smell
Of her decayed, chemical soaked body
Clung to the hairs in my nostrils,
Tingled the uvula in my throat,
But I could not cough.
They prodded her liver, lungs,
Intestines both large and small,
Her motionless heart—all brown,
Wine red, and that bubblegum pink.
They must have been unwrapping
And poking my insides too—
I wanted to cover her naked body
With my skin, or at least, glue back
Her salt and pepper fur, piece by piece.
Anything to end the misery
Of seeing her bare body
Exposed and vulnerable
Under the florescent lights.
It could be my skin one day,
Torn open as I lay dead
In a cold chamber alone.
***
Mindy Hsiao is a senior at Northwestern University aspiring to be a teacher at an urban charter school,
where she hopes she can inspire students to love literature and writing.
