It was not the needles that hurt him
Rather the whiteness of the doctors' coats.
He didn't dislike the other children
But every day he walked home alone.
He couldn't seem to find the same rhythm in his pace,
always out of step, a little too fast,
Or too slow, as he heard the teachers whisper.
When his feet slipped from the pedals of his bike,
the bite of the asphalt exposed a kneecap of pure white
and he had stared for several minutes
before anyone noticed the pool of warm blood on the street.
His bones were the same, he discovered that day.
And he could tolerate the whiteness of the lab coats
if he was allowed to heal people from the inside out.
If he could find his work in an operating room
full of familiar organs and veins,
just like those he admired beneath his papery skin.