Poetry by Ryan McLaughlin

Evaporation

You told me once that we become a brand-new person every seven years. I thought you were being philosophical, but you assured me it was science. Facts like this were simpler when research wasn’t such a loaded term. When it wasn’t necessary or dangerous.

The human body has 30 trillion cells. I think this is an estimate. The website didn’t explicitly say, but people have scratches, wounds, parts missing. Plus, all those inhuman cells. I should look up how many cells are in a lung.

It takes a germ cell two and a half months to develop into a sperm cell, but we don’t add that to the gestational total. I remember you saying all men are donors. You were mad about something; the details are fuzzy. I was something. Egg cells are never renewed. When they die, they’re just gone.

Stomach, intestine, colon . . . these cells only last a few days. Short, shitty lives. Skin cells hang around a bit longer before retiring to shelves and HEPA filters. But scar tissue—it clings and counts time like stubborn chalk on a cell wall. Company for tattoos and other minor traumas.

Olfactory receptor cells, with their filaments treading the mucus marshland of our noses, get renewed throughout our lives, while the neurons on the other end of the line won’t ever forget the taste of your burnt curried dal.

The first part of me to touch the photos—that’s regenerated all the time. Cornea cells are replaced in several days or so, sloughed away in briny pangs. But the retina cells, they’re irreplaceable. Do you think they get tired of recurring patterns? Maybe the repetition makes it easier. Do they feel lonely too?

Yesterday I was stopped at a red at the corner with the Korean place, and it occurred to me: someone in the city knows how many traffic lights there are. They would have an exact count. If it isn’t their job, it is part of their job to know this. I remember you telling me that the human body has 206 bones; you could have done that job. Turns out, our bones take ten years to be fully replaced. I’ve got a new Honda now, and a whole new frame.

Hearts and minds, that’s all that remains.

Our neurons aren’t dividing. All those grey cells, growing old with the aging in my eyes. Synaptic romances, growing stronger over time. If life were kind, it would be apparent—something glowing or inflamed—but I’ve no easy way to target the right parts to break and be done with them. You taught me to be persistent. I’ll keep trying.

Our heart cells, they’re slow burners. Their turnover rate is only about one percent per year, which leaves a significant bloody mass that still remembers your smell.

Ryan McLaughlin has been a journalist, video store clerk, teacher, 411 operator, editor, failed politician, security guard, trip router, graphic designer, gardener, code wrangler, student, writer, and father. He is finishing his first poetry collection and beginning work on a short story cycle interested in how absence defines people and places.