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“Did you bring the specimen sample?” the lab employee asked,

“UUhhhhhhh, no, I wasn’t aware I had to bring it.”

“Well…you can’t do that in here. Can you go home, do you live around here?”

“I wouldn’t be able to get back before you closed.”

“Ah ****, well, okay, take this,” he handed me a sample jar, “There’s a restroom on the second floor—”

“Woah! What? It’s a single-use restroom right?”

“Yeah man, don’t worry, we’ve all gone up there when we needed some privacy.”

“Jesus, okay, thanks, I’ll…be back…soon,” said in the manner of a partial-statement, partial-question,

And so there I was, on the second floor of a lab facility, attempting to get a sample after perhaps I had already produced too many samples in too short of time, especially for a man like me who is no longer a teenager, it was a rather difficult process, the environment was less than conducive, and when it finally happened it gave me an exertion headache that was so excruciatingly painful I thought my brain was going to ******* explode out of my ******* ears, my life’s work, concluded as I fell to the pissy floor of this restroom, having produced an extremely small amount of sample, what I had been viewing on my phone would have surely amused many, disappointed a few, and maybe flattered one, but ultimately nothing would matter ‘cause I would be dead, oh well,

When I went back downstairs to the office and gave the employee the jar he handed me a sterile one and told me, “Alright, just in case we need another sample, do it at home next time,” and I did.
Man Feb 2021
she said she couldn't believe i was real
but really, i was made in a lab
where they proded and poked
till this thing came out!
want me to do a little dance for you!?
balance on my dome?
swallow a sword?

find an exit off the interstate
serpentinium Sep 2019
i think of those lab rats
living their lives
blissfully in cages
hand-fed fruit-loops
and poison

they’re happy
says the veterinarian
scribbling notes on a clipboard
while the rats drink sugar
water and run on wheels

fate is not kind to lab rats
their years are already so short
a drop in the bucket compared
to the well of time humans draw
from greedily

death is a shadow for humanity;
it is the thought gnawing on the bars
of our mind, the ghost of an animal
running endlessly on a wheel
that we placate with toys and treats

we call it housing enrichment
because even lab rats have a home
because we choose to personify everything
even the things we ****:
carbon monoxide, bloodletting, a severing of nerves

and when they breathe their last breath
we write in our journals that the animals were
sacrificed, not killed, not murdered
dying for a cause bigger than them
for science, for knowledge, for gods on sterile altars
sacrificing animals in science is a tetchy subject for most; even some scientists. i just don't want to forget the importance of a single life--that which we **** to help others survive. note: scientia potentia est translates to 'knowledge is power'
Samantha Feb 2018
Warehouse, prison, laboratory,
Come and listen to my story,
Facilities in all their glory,
Just don't cross the territory...

Just be cautious, not combined...
Our anomalies, confined,
Your work will save all humankind.
Can you guess what I'm talking about?

— The End —