Soliloquy of an Erythrocyte
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A dispirited erythrocyte discovers meaning in shared struggle.
Erythrocyte:
Woe was the fool operating without intentionality
A mere mule for gas, I am a biconcave envelope
Empty of substance and organelles
A pawn in a vaporous game of chess
Alive for 120 days, but have not truly lived one
Red my sheen but a deoxygenated blue is my soul
A bag of hemoglobin, from alveoli to alveoli
I do not sleep, nor eat, nor find joy
I dream of an existence free from vasculature
Macrophage:
Micromorsels of mangled meningococci lace my membrane
So quick and brief, in the moment
I don’t know what came over myself
It happened before, hopefully not again
I can’t control the phagocytosis
Engorgement, I swallow with self-disgust
Neutrophil:
What was that? A shadow of a strep?
Nightmares of Staph aureus circumventing
My reactive oxygen species
Leave me quivering
The memory of his cytotoxicity
A massacre of tissue damage, I lie awake
Replaying in my mind
These intrusions are inescapable, ah!
Platelet:
Von Willebrand, over here micrometers to the left
He never learns, always missing the mark
Driving me crazy, the cascade must be perfect
I must clot, why if not
Something bad will happen
Bleeding is brutal, I am compelled
To clot
I clot here and I clot there
I do not stop for I must clot
Eosinophil:
These aches again
The spasms in my nucleus
Membranes seem discolored
Cytoplasm flows extra viscously
I feel it, I know it, I am dying
The spleen doesn’t believe me
Dismissing my complaints as ‘in my head’
I am forlorn, dying and forlorn
Erythrocyte:
Born from bone marrow
We are endowed a Tabula Rasa
Shaped by our adversities, we are alike
Enduring in silence is reduction division
The wealth of a blood cell
Is not weighed by their disposition in peace
But by their character in adversity
In poikilocytosis we stand
In unity we thrive
