counting on things

my immune system isn't the greatest, (a result of years of not taking care of myself, i suppose) and because of that i am often sick with something. whether it be a cold that can sometimes last months, a flu that takes a fifth of my body weight or an infection that starts from the smallest of injuries, i find myself uncomfortably ill on too many occasions. though my effort to improve my health is a pathetic one, i do not enjoy always being sick, as is commonly assumed. 

okay, so maybe i like it a bit---but i surely don't like going to the hospital, which i have to do when i need to be seen by a doctor since i am one of the lucky students of our glorious country that is not insured. i especially hate being put on intravenous drips. those things are no fun. 

god damn white blood cells not keeping up their end up the bargain in my bloodstream.

anyway, i wrote this in july sometime when i was in the hospital. i wish i would have had the morphine button, for real.

counting on things

sitting with needles in

my arm and
tubing all around me
i lie uncomfortably still

listening to machines
tick-off the time that
(i can't see)
is passing outside

paying close attention to
the quiet screams creeping
into my ears:
louder than expected and
more resonant here,
among such barren walls

with hours-long echoes
that eek their way into
my home life

quarantined
in my room
like i am always contagious

and indeed,
i've noticed how
people dig holes
between us
and when i say "us"
i mean "themselves"-

i wouldn't bother
braving burgeoning gaps

my legs don't break
for brittle replacements

though they've been repeatedly
forced into elevation-
at the mercy of a mattress and
the mind left to seep into it

as a fraction of a life

failing as an equation

accepting patterns like
they hurt or could reveal
to me my inconsistencies-

when, as a lone being,
i could never much rely on numbers:

like "how many"
never explains the disappointments