The Chronic Void
Kate Gough
Trigger Warning: chronic illness and hospitalization
Poppy pills and hospital bills,
The void, she costs more than I thought.
As I cut off the paper bracelet,
I wonder when the prickly tenderness
will paint its pain on my organs once more.
And the others, they try to help, in their own narrow ways.
Cathedral thunder and chicken noodle soup,
they threaten and soothe in the same breath.
Alone, I am, as they forget soon enough.
Chronic, I am stuck inside, as the world breathes,
through coughing fits, I try to get some sleep.
And in my dreams the void, she sings to me.
She tells me how the world sees me.
Helpless, poor little thing, barely lives,
they gasp.
But she, she cannot judge.
She can only prance through darkness
to cloak the ever toxic positivity.
The void, she carries me evermore,
as I live my life in sick captivity.
I live in reality, denial cobwebs the streets,
and in them I sneeze.
Alone, I am, but the void is home to me.