“Veins”

It’s hard to draw blood when you don’t have any veins. Every time the nurses and technicians poke and prod and examine the results are always the same: “I’m sorry, but we just can’t seem to locate strong enough of a vein to extract any blood from.”

They try to be nice about it. Make it seem like they’re just ill-equipped with improper technology. Speak in calm, understanding voices and make jokes about their finicky needles. They’ll refer me to specific blood and vein centers with more trained technicians and better instruments, but the results will always be the same.

“But that’s impossible.”

”Surely it’s just that your veins are small, and well-hidden under your skin. It’s rare but it happens.”

Their words of comfort mean nothing to me, for I know the truth.

I have no veins.

No median cubital vein, no ulnar artery, no femoral vein. None whatsoever. My blood just stays dormant in my body, yet I continue to breathe.

“But how can that be, you need veins to convey blood to your heart, you’d have no circulation otherwise?”

Simple—who needs veins when you don’t have a heart?

You think by now they’d have figured it out. You think with all the visits I’ve had they’d know.

I’m never there to give blood. I’m there to take it.