When I was younger
I spent one idle summer
unemployed
playing volleyball and selling plasma.
Twice a week I’d go and sit,
flirting with the dark-haired tech and
watching as the alcoholics
tried to squeeze a bottle from their veins
before I’d settle in to read some book or other
while my blood spun round in vicious circles
just outside of my body.
Twice a week they’d slide a needle
through my skin,
the hollow metal tearing just enough
to let my life fall out.
Always in the left forearm,
and always
always,
in the exact same spot.
Twice a week they’d
pierce the forming scar again
to open up my body
and pull my blood apart for me,
before they’d gave it back
and send me on my way.
It lasted just about an hour
and after I was done
I’d take my money
and my red cells
off to find a sandwich and some sand.
I ended that warm summer with a small white mark
inscribed above the vein
in my left arm,
a memory the flirty tech left
knitted through my skin
to remind me of an idle season’s cost.
For years it has stared up at me,
a silent moment of my past
that I can feel beneath my touch.
Lately, though, I cannot see it when I look,
unless I focus
harder than I should,
and I am left to wonder
if it is so far gone with age that
the echo of the thoughts
are all that’s left.
Perhaps I need to make fresh scars
to tell the story
of these busy days,
and pull my blood back into view
to mark and see
the time that I have lost
since I’ve forgotten
what it means
to just be idle
in the world.
