You Cannot Divide By Zero
Amy Jarvis
or multiply something out of nothing. I am
hospital-gowned & raging. this is not a
memoriam. I have been
collected in test tubes & put on trial for crying wolf. This summer,
I was searched for tumors. I imagined my head was
swarmed with locusts that web up & calcify. The MRI
machine whirred & clicked as it encircled my head—an
alien wreath. I used to wish for the power of invisibility
before this body was subtracted & rendered unprovable.
The needle stuck into flesh four times before it found
vein. I wish there was a word for the overlap
of violet & violence—how wicked you become
when you start praying for something worse. When I
faint & fall, my whole body rearranges variables. I crack
my neck in the tube as it threatens to capsize. No one knows
how to search for something that has no proof—this is a
scientific certainty. It doesn’t matter how loud the howls are,
if there is no evidence, the validity disappears. I wish to be
flickered out of existence & the room thunders louder. The
results show no sign of something alien as my whole body
continues to defamiliarize itself from me. I stare in the mirror
like focus will unveil illness’s ulterior motive & try to remember
a mass is not something to pray towards. Meanwhile, every test
comes back negative & my mother reminds me this is something
to be thankful for.