Marianna Sierra

What happens when you mix some third-world travel with an under-staffed university healthcare system? You end up in a toxic symbiotic relationship with an intestine-dwelling parasite for a boyfriend.

He told me that his friends call him Blasto, short for Blastocystis. He latched on to me as soon as he laid eyes on me, and for a while, we were joined at the hip (he didn’t realize hips aren’t what he’s supposed to feed off of, on account of being a dumbass single-celled organism and having no brain). We did everything together on our trip to Turkey. We ate the Shish Kebabs, we swam in the Lakes, we drank the Tap Water. Then, he started shitting my pants.

His best friend is Endolimax Nana, another dipshit single-celled protozoon. When you meet him, he likes to make sure you know his name rhymes with climax, which is something I am certain he does not know how to do since he is an asexual asswipe. Recently, I found out he’s been crashing on Blasto’s couch in the biome of my gut. They both leach their unemployment checks from my colon because they got fired for using their company credit card to buy illegal firecrackers off of Alibaba— and now I have to clean up their shit every time they set off an explosion.

Neither of them pays rent and their house (literally, my stomach) smells like leftover buffalo wings and lactose intolerance. They’re disgusting. Even scarier, they’re the species of men who can only communicate affection in the no-homo language of kicking each other in the nuts (and my bowels feel the blows).

Though I’d like to think Blasto’s dumber than a bottle of Mountain Dew, he must know something because he’s also a liar. When we first started seeing each other, I asked him if he was clean. He told me he had gotten tested and had no STIs. A month later, I come back to college testing positive for IBS. Then he tells me I’m crazy and that the doctors would never believe me. He knew that the Yale student population has access to exactly 2.5 medical professionals total and that my scarecrow-brained doctor wouldn’t catch him until my ninth stool sample. He forgot that I know his dick is both small and that he does not know how to use it.

He’s a misogynist disguised as silent-but-violent flatulence. He took control of my body and though my rigorous antibiotic regimen has brought him to justice, his whiny bitchface legacy lives on through my inability to eat creamy pastas without soiling myself.

Blasto, you’re the soggy bread that uses its dentures to gnaw at my anus. You don’t pay rent and eviction moratoriums have been lifted, so I’ll see you in court, motherfucker.

MARIANNA SIERRA