Deconstructed Anatomy

A zipper hangs
between my collar bones.
I pull it down
to my pelvis.

The flesh falls out.
Organs deflated—
paper thin,
lying on the floor:
deconstructed.

My knees shiver,
bone-cold.

My mother will complain
about how tough it is
to remove blood from rugs,
but perhaps she’ll understand:
I’ve never had a beating heart.

Maltese-born Jeremy Mifsud is a queer, autistic writer and poet, currently reading for a Masters in Cognitive Science at the University of Malta. Social ineptitude becomes a catalyst for his art as he weaves unsaid words into poems and short fiction. He has self-published a full-length collection Welcome to the Sombre Days (2018). More of his poetry and fiction appears or is forthcoming in Please Hear What I'm Not Saying (2018), Lucent Dreaming, Constellate and others.