Type

The form came back.

Medical results.

Rows of data

that reduce me to numbers.

One line, though.

My blood type.

Printed. Official.

A label I haven't thought about

in years.

I've never seen it.

Not really.

I can't open a vein

and look at it myself.

I only know it because someone

drew it out

and tested it

and wrote it down.

It's a strange kind of knowing—

to be told what's inside you

by someone else's authority.

The category fits.

It's definitive.

It's also completely abstract.

I am this thing

that I cannot verify,

that I didn't choose,

that I will never be able to see

for myself.

The form sits on my desk.

I keep looking at that one line.

Blood type.

As if I'm not more complicated

than the inside of my veins.

As if I can be reduced

to a letter

and a symbol.

As if the label

is the thing

and not the thing

the label is trying to name.