to the hospital

Up to the hospital on the hill today to meet doctor number three who referred me to doctors numbered four and five. The second the needle pierces the vein I feel the burn and know the bitch will leave me with a little trace, the junkie mark, on my forearm. I used to watch to prove my toughness. Now I don’t care how tough I look. I just wonder, how much tissue do we all leave in hospital labs in the course of our lives? How many ounces of blood, piss, shit, tissue does the average human sacrifice in the name of health? I think of my old dog, Stella, what they called a fatal white. Some breeders, they kill albino puppies: too many health problems. Not any single, costly blow. Just a series of chronic annoyances. I think of "Gattica". I think of the number of pills I take a day, how long I’ll have to take them, the number of procedures I’ve had this year, the probable course of treatment and how much money I can save the collective insurance pool and family if I kill myself with cigarettes sooner than later. But, knowing me, I’ll wind up with chronic emphysema. Which I will fight like a pit-bull until age 80. I pretend that the day they tell me I am actually dying I will laugh and say, “no shit.” We are all dying. Every fucking day. That’s the trick. I pretend I know this trick. Not scared. No, not me. This is part of the cost-benefit analysis. Back to Jimmy Carter’s deceased child-prophet-poet co-author on peace: those who self-actualize die. If that’s the trick I don’t want to figure it out for a long time.