Dear Small Bowel

My apologies for your current location
in this surgical suite.
More apologies for the reason why…
those things I swallowed during yesterday’s
momentary episode of insanity.
First, that Sharpie marker. The closest item
on the table next to my bed, I didn’t even
sit up before pushing it down my throat
with my fingers and swallowing a dozen times
until I didn’t feel it stuck on the way to you.
Next, the cigarette lighter. It didn’t go
through as easy, that blue Bic I use to
light incense bought in Little India that
perfumes the bad spirits I see.
Then, the syringe with a small bore needle.
I must not really want to die,
or I would have removed the cap.
The three-piece set, which I stole from the lab
where they draw my blood,
met you intact and was removed just
now by a skilled surgeon who
shook his head as he placed it on the
instrument table next to the other things.
He’ll find one last ingested item,
a plastic drinking straw.
I made knots in it before gulping
it to the back of my throat with warm soda,
from the Styrofoam cup it came from.
I have to say, I barely felt it at all
before passing out for what I thought
would be my final consumption.

Jessica Parker was raised in Reno, NV and lives in Huntington Beach, CA. As a writer of plainspoken poetry, she works in a nonprofit safety net hospital and finds her best words come from what she sees there. Her poetry collection offers a clinical but thought-provoking entry into a world of being both patient and healthcare professional. A cancer survivor since childhood, her writing presents vivid imagery of both illness and healing while maintaining her own personal sentiments on overcoming adversity.