Solution

She didn’t even need a knife to get it out of me. Just punched right through the bone and tissue, ripping it out like a prize, blood exploding like confetti at the Macy’s Day Parade. Poof.

She did a lap around Lake Merritt holding that poor, still beating, rag of muscle over her head. Clasping both hands around it and shaking her fists once on the right side of her head, once on the left side, like a fucking champion.

Picnicking people wondered at the gore running down her arms. Wondered, but was infected by her jubilation. Said, Hey, she’s stoked, then cheered together.

I watched her lap all the joggers as I clutched at the gaping hole in my chest. I wondered what I could do to patch it up. First, I grabbed a handful of feathers (I was right by the bird sanctuary) and just stuffed all that muck into my chest. To seal it up, I jammed my hand down into a low part of the lake, grabbing fistfuls of mud and shit, and packed that into the hole. It looked alright, actually, after I smoothed out the edges. It smelled like hell, though.

On my way past the boating center, I noticed little bits of construction paper blowing everywhere. Different colors peppering the ground like disco snow. One of the teachers from the summer camp had left a trash can right outside the classroom door that the wind was tearing into.

Here I am walking along this beautiful summer day with a gaping hole stuffed with feathers, mud, and shit in my chest, and I almost let it go because all the little bits of colorful construction paper were reminding me of being a kid, you know? The way it was blowing around in that wind felt like a different kind of parade, a happy parade. Not like the lonely parade circuiting the lake. The bleeding heart held over her head dripped blood into her mouth; she was so happy it was hanging wide open.

Now, I’m walking around without a heart, and everyone’s looking at me funny. A whole piece of construction paper blows into my path, and I have this brilliant idea. Maybe I’ll just take this construction paper and, you know, cut a heart out of it. Kind of like a placeholder. Why not? So, I cut it out, and I stamped it onto my chest. The mud and shit were a great glue, actually.

Finally, I start my long walk home. And it’s fucking long. I have all the time to think about the crazy thing that just happened to me, re: getting my heart ripped out.

I put my hand over my paper heart and, boom, I realize she has that ragged, weak, oozing-nasty-fluids pip of a muscle. But that’s the only one she’s gonna get! She can’t tear another one out of me.

I mean, yeah, she can tear this piece of paper right off me. But imagine how easy it is to come by paper, paper in a million different colors. There are even some with patterns! Maybe, one day, I want birds in my heart. Done. Hello, Michaels Arts and Crafts. Feeling zany, here’s some plaid-patterned paper. Get silly!

Feeling better, I came across the overpass at 18th and San Bruno, the one right over the 101. I’m so happy about the prospect of my renewable heart that I just can’t help it. I imagine her doing her victory lap around that shining lake, and I snap my little paper replacement right off me. In the breeze, the cars make the happy little fucker just dance.

I start to dance, too. Pretty soon, I can’t stop. My knees are coming up past my hips, I’m jiving! I hold that one-in-a-million paper surrogate, just loving it to death.

Loving it, knowing that I’ll never lose it. I’ll never lose it because there are a million more out there, just like it.