"No dice.  I'm sorry" to the things that came with me.

Shower on. Soaps go on different parts of me. I forget which go where.

"Just do it the same. Just do it the same. Why didn't you do it the same? To corroborate."

The needle pricks are three inches away from before. I won't call it a teardrop, the shape of what remains between my legs.

Now he will consult with the other doctor. And they will flunk me. I'm not repeatable. Last time was a product of hope.

"All the hopes I had before weren't specific enough?"

Where are they?

The tech stayed with me waiting for a cab for an hour. I panicked, and then I panicked that I was panicking. I was lightheaded or forsaken. Maybe he will put a good word in for me with the doctors, tell them they should still believe in me.

I thought my grandpa was an angel, prayed to him specifically. What, I have more to learn? Is that it?

This is my Paris, you know? This is my marriage. This is my adulthood. All my rites of passage for the past seven years have come from my pain, all of them dictated, chosen by a silly little nerve that refuses to be found. That the universe refuses to find.

The doctor said if we find the nerve and it's in my belly, we can snip it and stop it forever. My life is a game of millimeters. My life is a game of permission. Does chance take me in or does it refuse.

When I was 18, I mused about how contained we are, never able to be sunsets except as dancers. But pain colors the dance. How can you be a sunset when pain colors the dance.

It's very hard not to run away.