My Gut
Blood goes where it’s told to go. Some days my blood is thick like syrup, like a Belgian dubbel. Other days it’s parched and gaunt, trickling like a dying rill.
My hormones leave their barracks when summoned. They slip down bunk-bed ladders to get a message out. My endocrine system, always open.
The bacteria colonizing my stomach snare foreigners. I was so unkind to my poor little bacteria. I betrayed our symbiotic arrangement. I swallowed an antibiotic, and it butchered all the little bacteria families.
My stomach swells. My body responds appropriately to stimuli. It commits no errors, says the functional medicine woman. My gut is tender. It bends to the slightest imbalance. It rages and moans, it entreats. It’s taut — bursting, goddammit! I will put new food inside of me. Heartburn feels like hot swirling mud. I’ve felt it many nights. I’ve laid facedown in bed, belly up, my bloated convex abdomen pulsing in short stupid blips.
You’re gonna’ get diabetes, then die from it, you fat lazy fuck. That’s what I say when I’m lying there.
Maybe it’s the bread, the gluten. That menacing boy in the neighborhood who irks his fellows. That incorrigible, havoc-wreaking adolescent dripping with popsicle juice. Yes, maybe it’s the gluten.
