Mechanical Heart
July 07, 2021—Wednesday Prose Poem: Misanthropology
before i could muster a voice to protest—before my tear-filled eyes could plead for respite—they had plucked my soft, brittle heart from my chest—replacing it with a frozen, unfeeling mass—a mechanical one, they had said—a stronger, more resilient one, they had promised.
they filled my hollow breast with wired complacency—stitched me up with fibrous lies, and needled pleasure—i could feel the quiet—tick, tick, tick—rattle against my rib cage— biting back the urge to cry—to scream—to die.
a mechanical heart—
when i was no longer myself—the only remnants of my body left stuck—lifeless—to their black-fingered hands—they released me, for i had nothing left to offer them—no more weathered organs, no more broken pieces—no more fucked up parts.
a stronger, more resilient heart—
i hid away for days—lingering in a muted half-life, stuck between dirty alleyways and dark, dead-end streets—until the emptiness inside of me quelled, and became a hazy shade of gray— my innards had finally welcomed the cold, carbon metal placed alongside my bones, lulled away from tempered rage with a quiet—tick, tick, tick—of fully synthetic flesh.
Xandra Winters, 2021 ©️
Thank you to J.D. Harms for inspiring this piece with the awesome prompt!
