a catheter, into the central vein on the inside of her bicep. The line fed into her arm, through her chest, and stopped just outside of the chambers of her heart. I couldn’t watch it happen, couldn’t look at the ultrasound of her arm, the muscular formations outlined in black and white, the shape that reduced her to a series of rhymes. But if I could’ve looked, I would’ve sent messages into her PICC line with morse code, messages about presidents with depression and adults with telephonophobia and cashiers who clutch at the counter while asking, Would you like to donate to leukemia research? While she slept, I would move the heavy cotton blankets back to expose the bruising around the PICC line. I would pull the clear tubes apart, separate her from the bags of fluid. I would place my finger over the end of the tube and tap messages. They would travel into her body. The messages would move past her lungs, stopping outside the heart. They would wait to be let in. They would be pumped into the veins that traverse the body’s arteries to create pulses that cannot press the inside of gloves without making themselves known. Those fingertip pulses, carrying my coded messages, would remain in her after the hospital. She would leave the transmitted telegraphs on light switches and doorknobs. I am new every day, I could tap into her PICC line. I am smart. I will not cry in Culinary Applications. I don’t give a damn. It is all fake. .-- . / -.. --- -. .----. - / -. . . -.. / .- / ..-. .- - .... . .-. .-.-.- . I would give her sleeping body all the coping mechanisms I know of if I could, but somewhere along the way, her own body would change the sound of the tapping. Don’t make me. Every day. .. / -.-. .- -. -. --- - / ..-. .- -.- . / .. - .-.-.- . There is a bird inside me. 60-100 bpm I sigh and call it meditation. Carpet bends to the shape of my body in shavasana. When I get up, the outline of me will remain. An impression of my corpse in the crushed brown knots. I try to remember the three rules of mindful meditation. Focus on the breath. Do not judge. Be in the present moment. I fail to focus on my breathing immediately. This results in judgment, a desire for five minutes to come and go, for this to be over. My spine is rigid, not quite touching the floor in the middle. My elbow brushes the footstool, reminding me of the room around me. The space I fill and fill to remind myself what I am made of. I am birthday cards sent from Grandmothers, --- .-.. -.. / -... --- --- -.- ... / .- ... / -.. . -.-. --- .-. .- - .. --- -., strawberry tea steeping in plastic manatees, kitchen bicycles disguised as clothes racks. Morse Code Key: We don’t need a father; I cannot fake it; old books as decoration
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