Tuesday, April 5, 2011

It's National Poetry Month!

I know some people are entered into WegoHealth's 30/30 blog challenge this month, which is awesome, but it's National Poetry Month, so I am working away this month to write 30 poems in 30 days. Since this particular selection is related to diabetes for once, I thought I should share.

Bloodtyping Lab, Sophomore Year

No one went white in the face entirely.

The professor gleefully handed out disposable lancets,

One-shot deals with covered needles

So no one could see the pointed stainless aimed

At the delicate side of an index finger, a thumb, a pinkie.

Some of us blinked in disbelief

That our cushy private college would be asking us

To mutilate our own fingertips in the name of science,

But hey, our professor did announce that this lab

Was completely optional.

I needed the extra credit.

"All you have to do is prick your finger then

Squeeze out some blood

And squeeze it up in the pipette!"

My classmates seemed befuddled when our professor told us

It was okay to proceed, don't be shy now.

Hundreds of thousands of times I've pricked my own finger,

Juiced blood from the depths of the tiny vessels below.

It was just any other day for me,

Only equipped with someone else's lancing device.

I pressed the hole to the side of my finger,

Squeezed the button and began the self-bloodletting.

The pipette was a plastic mosquito.

I dripped the blood into the assigned test container.

Everyone at my table noticed I was done already.

"How...?" asked one girl, not sure how to finish.

"Diabetes," I responded. "12 years. I do this shit every day."

"Could you...help me?"

I cracked jokes that the school would otherwise suspend a girl

Who stabs three of her classmates.

In the end, I was fittingly typed

B Positive.

***
If you would like to do a 30/30 poetry challenge, I recommend it. Just remember--it's about 30 poems, not 30 perfect, publication-ready poems!