There lives a city only with pairs permitting.
Two lungs move together with love in the air;
she takes his breath away when they’re a pair.
The kidneys try to filter out the troubles of today
but were too busy getting stoned and pissing the day away.
Always running together were the nostrils —
surely he knows she is picked to be his world.
Two eyes only care about looks and seem vain;
yet only the two see the world exactly the same.
In time they will stop seeing each other as well;
however, they will stay in contact, forever in parallel.
The legs with brawn share the weight of all the city’s love —
even with their walls shaking from the neighbors above
where ferocious love-making rattle the neighbors to go mad.
Here, lived passionately, the honeymooning gonads.
The hands prefer to hold each other in embrace
while the brain understands its other half no matter the case.
In the middle of it all, the heart was alone.
He sensed how well the others worked within their homes;
he felt the harmony that they all shared
and wondered if one day he would ever be paired.
He had a scar down his chest from when a girl broke him,
but he still had hope even though love seemed so grim.
So he decided to work until romance surfaced from this bottomless sea.
Alone, he slaved away monotonously.
Day in, day out.
Day in, day out.
Day in, day out.
Day in, day-um.
He skipped a beat —
an angelic silhouette in a city down the street.
Immediately his past was something minimized
because with her in view he was filled with butterflies.
He wondered why he never introduced himself before.
After he knocked on the door,
she introduced his jaw to the floor.
When she opened, like him, in her chambers she had four,
and like him, she enjoyed music that moved her to her core,
and like him, when she had emotions her insides would roar,
and like him, she did her job and a little bit more.
She lacked attributes that some neighbors prefer,
but she was like him, and he liked her.
So with every little rhythmic touch,
it sent fibrillations down his crust.
It was different this time: with her he found bliss.
It was perfect chemistry, and she was worth the risk.
So he built up the courage to ask for a date,
and from that point on endless chatter began to circulate.
She loved talking to someone just as quirky
and thought that maybe this one was worthy.
With emotions mounting at a rapid rate,
she delightedly agreed to make it a date.
During the date she asked if he had ever been broken;
she saw that he was uncomfortable when those words were spoken.
He said, “Well, you see, I have this scar on my chest…”
She said, “Look, I have the same one above my breast.”
Well, this heart was never one for jealousy.
She touched his scar with a simple remedy:
”Heartbreak was the best thing to happen because it led to us.”
With this one-of-a-kind girl in his life, he began to blush.
It was like she was that last particle of oxygen so that he was not blue.
She was the one that he wanted to give himself to.
Now with two hearts paired, the city seemed better —
so much happier, stronger, and braver than before he met her.
Although every city is built with one heart at its debut,
there is something that this heart assuredly knew,
something that he realized as soon as he met you:
life doesn’t become whole until the heart becomes two.
Poetry Thursdays is an initiative that highlights poems by medical students and physicians. If you are interested in contributing or would like to learn more, please contact our editors.
Contributing Writer
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine
Mitchell Foster is a second-year medical student at the University of California, San Diego Class of 2022. In 2016, he graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Bachelor of Science in pharmacology. He enjoys traveling, sports, and playing with dogs in his free time. After graduating medical school, Mitchell would like to pursue a career in emergency medicine, sports medicine, or surgery.