Today

Today it's like when this started
I'm full of snot and aches and self-hate
Only now I'm 55, not 19,

and the recurrent URIs settled
into a stupidly-named diagnosis that make it sound like I need a nap instead of a new body.

I always hoped I could be Somebody
so the brilliant hatred of self-hate would fade like all too-bright lights
and eventually be an anecdote I'd tell in the past tense, like something I grew out of or something that just went away.

Like if you read this poem-story
and like it
maybe the hard light that shows everything I think is bad and wrong and undeserving will dim and there will be something left
worth loving.

Not Haiku & Whiny

I want to be elsewhere.

Somewhere with wildflowers 

and birds who are alive.

Not sitting here in a quasi-comfortable chair, smelling sanitizers through my mask,

looking at the ugly floor & my phone.

I attempt politeness when the doctor comes in

and tells me the test results are normal.

It's not his fault 

I am frustrated,

Or that so many previous doctors have been unhelpful jerks for the last 30 odd years.

I carry all this with me, plus this disease no one understands.

No wonder I'm beyond exhausted.

For Maia

The window's closed,

but I hear birds. Maybe

they're discussing Spring.

Written 4/2/2024

It's cold in the house.
I open the windows anyway 

to smell Spring.

Written a couple days ago

 

California Bluebirds

They say

There aren't really Bluebirds 
in California.
We have Scrub Jays, but they still mean
Spring. And I just saw one.

Not Haiku

The cold wakes us up.

The young cat squeaks & squibbles

& runs around as usual.

The old cat & I plod toward the heater.

Sharing the space, we get warm.