Before I Die Young

My parents were both cut in two, my mother head to torso, laterally bisected into equal parts, my father cut slightly off center into unequal parts, his heart bisected, his head intact. My parents were cut in two, as if giant shards of sharp glass were free falling in the universe. She happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, he standing next to her, they were both cut in pieces. When I look at this picture carefully, I notice their only daughter so close by her mother's side, pierced through at an angel, my viscera partially exposed. These are my addictions, this my disorderly conduct, here is my gore, mixed with the coffee stains on the cluttered table. I go on living like this, cut almost through, remembering my parents, her vacant eyes, his neck wrenched sideways, wracked with pain, how they died a thousand deaths before they both died young. This is the shard of glass that fell out of the universe through me. I go on living like this, hoping someday I'll meet a surgeon or discover a way to dissolve glass before I die young, too.