Something, Nothing
Face down in a pillow. Whirring poised above.
Click.
Picture.
Click.
Something’s wrong with you; nothing’s wrong with you.
We have to fill four tubes.
The fluid comes out clear—nothing’s wrong with that, but something’s wrong with you.
Next appointment: video. A student watches by the corner. Watching what is wrong with you, but what is wrong with you? Nothing, but something.
Perhaps you imagine it. She can’t hear you, but she heard the doctor.
Black screen reflecting dark circles, dark on dark. Perhaps you imagine the dark.
Harsh light on fragile eyes; caught, crammed on an escalator. Dragged; up on up; surrounded by faces.
A woman stands still, laughing at the sky, pills spilling from her hands. There’s something
wrong with her.
A man stares backward, furrowed. His tears dissolve in the machine. Something’s wrong with him. Or is there something wrong with you?
Forwards, up on up.
Breathless. Convulsing. Shaking hands reaching out, too weak to grasp. Pushed down by nothing, but not nothing.
Something’s wrong with you.
At the top, you look for a ledge– the next apathetic scalpel, the next skeptical needle.
Something’s wrong with you.
Downwards. Falling on falling. Past pills and tears.
Give up, they say, give up! There’s nothing wrong with you, there’s something wrong with us.
Give up!
Face down in a pillow. Dark room, darker circles.
Dark on pale: blank.
There’s the needle–it’s in your arm, your hand. No answer to the buzzer.
There’s something wrong with you, and something’s wrong with them.
Gabby Bunko is a senior at Montana State University majoring in English: Writing and English: Literature with a minor in Hispanic Studies. Originally from Belgrade, MT, she will start graduate school in the fall at Arizona State University to earn her PhD in Writing, Rhetorics, and Literacies.