Bloodwork

by Xenia E.

​

 

ginger ale makes me sneeze

the good kind anyway but I’ll take a

green aluminum can over nothing

we met in a month where the

season started to change–that’s a

specific time of year to meet someone

we both got blood drawn that month

for unrelated issues. I was taking

care of myself and my chaotic stomach

(this is why I know so much about ginger ale)

you were monitoring the tumors

in your uterus and taking care of yourself

we both did that separately but the context

that now I get to exist alongside you

changes everything.

 

I don’t wince at a needle’s pull I know you

don’t either, we’ve both been through so much

I like that about us, it makes our love

more candid. There’s so much satisfaction in

getting one’s hands covered in earth and debris

and then washing them clean.

 

the moon was kind of elusive when we stood

watching it on a bridge, you pulled out your phone

which told us the star I was inquiring about

was part of Serpens, a constellation in the

northern hemisphere, coined by the 2nd astronomer

I always want to name stars as planets

everything always exists alone to me and then you

pulled out your phone and told me the star

I was pointing to was part of a constellation

which reminded me everything belongs somewhere

In mythology Serpens represents

a healer holding a giant snake who was

said to bring back people from the dead

 

today you went for a run said it felt so

good but that you also felt weak, last night

I drank a ginger ale because my stomach hurt

next week we talk to our doctors separately

because I get to exist alongside you it

changes everything. I ordered the bloodwork

before we met it’s just that now I feel

brought back from my own sort of dead

a kind of dead where I’ve practiced so many times

how to exist alone in the world I forgot about the

possibility of existing alongside you:

healer, patient, constellation.