Yasmine Chokrane (16)
how to read a biology textbook
You can’t hold a heart in your hands.
(I’ve learned that the hard way.)
I’ve tried
to reach between your hips—
travelling up from under
—attempted to play your ribcage like a xylophone
and pop your lungs like bubblegum.
“You can’t hold a heart in your hands,”
(you whisper, your voice gritting against my skin)
However, that hasn’t stopped you
from placing your fingers
in my mouth,
so that my sentences are coated with you,
so that your gestures forever echo me.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(but you can hold a person.)
Soft, supple, tattered, and fragile.
Ragged, edged, dynamic, saturnine.
We, two opposing forces, you
leaving fingerprints on my skin,
evidence for some forgotten crime.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(and yet, you can shatter it into pieces.)
As you tried to do,
when you attempted to travel up from under
grabbed my hips and broke me in two—
twigs snapping under footsteps
—until all my insides fell out unto you.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(however you peeked a glance at mon coeur)
After you split my intestines,
let my blood run like River Acheron,
opened me up like a pocket mirror, and
my organs spilt. I, left at your disposal;
my heart deflated, limp on a broken spinal cord.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(but you can break it, nonetheless.)
I’ve learned that the hard way.
Yasmine Chokrane is a current junior at Stuyvesant High School in New York, NY.
how to read a biology textbook
You can’t hold a heart in your hands.
(I’ve learned that the hard way.)
I’ve tried
to reach between your hips—
travelling up from under
—attempted to play your ribcage like a xylophone
and pop your lungs like bubblegum.
“You can’t hold a heart in your hands,”
(you whisper, your voice gritting against my skin)
However, that hasn’t stopped you
from placing your fingers
in my mouth,
so that my sentences are coated with you,
so that your gestures forever echo me.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(but you can hold a person.)
Soft, supple, tattered, and fragile.
Ragged, edged, dynamic, saturnine.
We, two opposing forces, you
leaving fingerprints on my skin,
evidence for some forgotten crime.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(and yet, you can shatter it into pieces.)
As you tried to do,
when you attempted to travel up from under
grabbed my hips and broke me in two—
twigs snapping under footsteps
—until all my insides fell out unto you.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(however you peeked a glance at mon coeur)
After you split my intestines,
let my blood run like River Acheron,
opened me up like a pocket mirror, and
my organs spilt. I, left at your disposal;
my heart deflated, limp on a broken spinal cord.
You can’t hold a heart in your hands,
(but you can break it, nonetheless.)
I’ve learned that the hard way.
Yasmine Chokrane is a current junior at Stuyvesant High School in New York, NY.