Hello class.  

This was a man once.  

It is normal to be afraid.  

Try not to be afraid.  

This is half your grade.                                        

He chose science.  

 

Have you ever held a heart  

In your hand before?  

Perhaps not. You are only nineteen.  

Perhaps you are not yet acquainted with                                                           

Our faultless faulty machinery;   

That fossilised flesh and all 

Its dizzying possibilities.  

But, like anything in this world 

That we call consistent,  

It ends up in our lab 

Ready for incision.  

This was a man once.  

 

And he’d tell you this:  

The heart you’re about to slice 

And seal in a Ziplock bag  

First belonged to my mother  

Who rarely left my side. 

Especially when I needed her there.  

Especially when I needed her gone.   

My father was a shadow, a laugh,  

Two-thirds of a memory;  

An idea that was easy to love  

And harder to let go. 

I was a man once. 

 

Please move onto his brain.

 

Built for sums, spare parts, and snippets of poetry;  

It is guilty of overthinking, underthinking,  

Nightmares, daydreams, and replaying scenes 

Which should never have been seen.  

They’re seldom shared, these weighty things,  

Which haunt and scream and beg for release –   

Start at the cerebrum. 

Don’t stop until you  

Sever the spinal cord.  

You should be afraid.  

 

Now you’re hovering near  

My feet with your scalpel,  

A butchery in this light,  

But in the beginning, they were ornamental;  

Blue cotton socks and wiggly pink toes, 

A whole photo album of crawling, wobbling,   

Tearing across barns, climbing trees,  

Up and down on the rusty trampoline 

Like a madman trying to touch the sky;  

A country kid through and through,  

Until I found myself trudging  

Between meeting rooms, 

Until  

I heard it was a misstep.  

Poor cadaver. The wrong strip of cement.   

Please describe, in detail,  

The science of his death.  

This is half your grade. 

 

Class, the end of our time is here.  

Just one little thing. Before you go –   

Glance at my hands, my cold limp hands,  

And imagine the warmth flooding back  

For one last stand; spark me, summon me,  

Breathe me into a new beginning. 

I’ll reclaim my ring from my box of things,  

And find she who held my heart 

For a brief, breathless eternity –  

Are you listening? This is important!  

I want diagrams, not soppy prose   

Mourning the man who chose science.