I left the house an hour and a half ago and came back with a little piece of me missing.

I think it's appropriate that the little worms of tissue they took are called cores. It feels like I've been cored, and now a part of my body is up for scrutiny. They are little squiggles of flesh, pulled from deep inside my chest to be examined. Benign, malignant, harmless. who knows. but the pathologist will know and they will tell me and then I will have a small sense of the future.

I went in and they led through a labyrinth of rooms. I took off my t-shirt and bra and climbed onto the long, skinny table. How strange it felt to be climbing onto a table with my shoes still on. How strange it felt to be climbing onto a table, period.

I told them where it was and they felt it. a little pea deep in my breast. They found it on ultrasound and took a bunch of pictures.

say cheese!

Then they poked a little hole in me and then they cut a larger hole in me. I couldn't feel it and I couldn't see it. I jus knew they were there. A long needle went in and pushed around. I could see it on the ultrasound screen- it looked like a giant spear pushing pushing through my breast to get to the core. It was a little painful but more just uncomfortable, and not even that much uncomfortable either. The numbing medicine worked really well. Then there was a snap and she pulled out the worm and then she went to work on it again.

They did it three times. three cores. three pictures of the lump with a big needle piercing through. then a last picture with the lump, only now with blank spots where the worms had nested. She cleaned me off and moved around and it was so awkward. I just wanted to get dressed, get off the table, hold someone's hand. But I had come alone and now was invaded by needles and syringes and lidocaine. They went about their business so i went about the business of getting dressed. Then I stood there and they looked at me as though I was the intruder. I explained that I didn't know how to get out of the building.

They directed me out past a row of woman three times my age all waiting in the same little kimono with the same little worried face. I felt scared and alone. we shared that feeling as I walked past. I was separated only by the fact that I was already done with my procedure while they had to wait to have theirs done.

I am wondering why my tattoos- painful and uncomfortable, had the air of celebration to them while my biopsy is just worry. Similar sensation, similar strangers marking up my body. They are all trophies of life. But this one feels different.

I went in one way and came out another way.