How to be sick
1. Cut open your lead filled stomach. Squeeze your intestines like they are tubes of toothpaste. Spin them into a noose. Wring the necks of anyone who has ever made fun of you.
2. Take the pills. Aleve. Tums. Xanax. Valium. Rub CBD oil on your abdomen like it doesn’t burn. Brush your teeth. Shower. Remind yourself you are not dirty. Cut your hair. Watch it fall down the drain.
3. Reach down the doctor’s throat for a diagnosis. Beg her to tell you your suffering is real. Throw up if you have to. Swallow it if you can. Skip class. Crawl into bed. Tell yourself you are just resting. Tell yourself you are not ashamed.Tell yourself it is normal to be this tired.
4. Call your mother. Ask her about the day you were born. Feel the summer rain on your face. Look out the hospital window. You are alive now. Let her remind you of your first steps on shaky legs. Take them again.
5. Clean your blood from the bathroom. Remember when it used to scare you? Read to yourself. Hold water to your lips. Hold a washcloth to your forehead. Hold your body. You are your own nurse. You are your own gardener. You are growing.
6. Do not watch from your bedroom window. It will just make you sad. Remind yourself you are sick. Remind yourself you are not lazy. Remind yourself that this ends.
7. In another universe you are well enough to run through the grass outside the way your ancestors chased hyenas in bare feet. In another universe you are holding a lover without fear of being sick to your stomach. In another universe you have not held this pain all your life. In another universe you are not this strong.
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