Pre-diagnosis

But not post-onset

Image Description

“Doctor, from ‘Dance of Death,’ ” etched by Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein the Younger’s printing (1651), courtesy of the Met’s online image collection. Image description: Cyan-tinted drawing of an emaciated, skeletal figure with visible ribs and bones, holding a small bag (presumably of money) in its right hand. It walks towards a figure on the left, who appears to be a physician, who is waiting pleasantly with an outstretched hand. The physician is dressed in robes and a cap, and is seated at a desk or table. The skeletal figure walks past another robed figure in the picture—perhaps another patient—and speaks a phrase at the bottom of the picture that says “medice, cura te ipsum” (“Doctor, heal thyself”).

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Pre-diagnosis

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But not post-onset

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I lost parts of my life

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Because

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something was wrong.

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And it’s all a blur

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Of fatigue and felled promises

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Missed commitments

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Overflowing laundry

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Third day without a shower

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Just wiped

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Must be —

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Oh it’s just passing

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Stress

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I’ve been stretched too thin lately

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I’m too thin lately

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I’m too fat lately

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God I just want to collapse

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Why does everything hurt

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Is it supposed to hurt this bad???

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Got canned again.

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Annnnnd again.

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My life, all my hopes like a mannequin

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That’s supposed to all go on me, right???

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Those clothes, those cute earrings

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We’re supposed to be having fun in the sun

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That cardboard background is supposed to be real

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But I’m watching the simulation of me wear it

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Like a phantom

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Being sold back to me.

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II.

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I didn’t know anything was wrong with me —no,

I knew there was something wrong but I didn’t know

That what was wrong with me

wasn’t me

But something else

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III.

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Did having a label matter?

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Let me put it this way:

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Did designer suits ever save us?

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IV.

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A label is a billing category.

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V.

I’m a luxury fucking good.

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VI.

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I had an ex who saw someone on YouTube with a different kind of what I have. They said, “yeah, she doesn’t have a lot longer to live….” and then,

glanced nervously at my knees

Concave curved as usual

And said “You sure you don’t have pain like that?”

What do you think I said?

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VII.

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My suffering has no point.

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All those Brilliant Young Minds

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Merely spun me in circles

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Maxed out Medicaid and me

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What lesson did the Spanish flu teach??

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The only choices being made

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Are how many people the rich are willing to let die

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Before one of them catches cold and suddenly has to care

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VIII.

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I spend winters saying to myself

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Surely this year

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Every birthday I say

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It’s gotta happen

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I’m losing someone else’s race

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But when it snows then everyone is stuck inside

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something is changing

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something is starting to scar

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Insurance won’t cover the next test

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I’m back on hold again

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