Hippocratic oath

Medicine estimates that your heart is about the same size as your clenched fist. But I think my heart is bigger than my fist. I've never thrown a punch at someone and my hand is so small I imagine it would barely make a bruise the size of a plum. He compares his hands to mine. I slide the base of my palm up just a bit higher than his and he slides it down to make sure the measurement is accurate but we know it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much bigger his hands are because he fits neatly between the pages of a heavy medical textbook and his fist is precisely the size of his heart. I can smell the coated paper as I place my palm flat against his left breast. My younger sister and I used to settle our frequent arguments by wrestling with each other. The only reason we now fight with words instead of limbs is because my sister now has about five inches and twenty pounds on me: I simply wouldn't win. My mother used to always remark, your sister loves you fully no matter how badly you treat her. Back then I never said "I love you" to my sister but I got upset whenever she called me by my name and not her affectionate term, "sissy". Back then I never thought about the size of my heart. My grandmother uses the word "prickly" to describe someone who is not affectionate. I sometimes imagine a cactus and how, if you're pricked by one, the blood won't flow out of the wound until you pull the prickle out of your skin. I look up at the night sky and trace constellations that aren't there, connecting my own dots from star to star, hoping that an image will appear and the hydrogen will drip down into my hair like a paternal pat on the head. If you press your fingers against the soft spot on my neck you'll find my pulse and I'll never tell you the beats per minute but you'll feel the thump-thump of the artery on your fingertips. And when you wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare that you've had before I won't say a word but I'll enclose your hand in my fist. I think my heart is bigger than my fist but in time and if you're careful, you'll see just how well it bleeds.