| |
HYPOCHONDRIA
Under
the cartilage of my breastbone
there’s a citizen’s revolt,
and my abdomen files a complaint.
Will immunity not divorce my body
if provided marriage counseling?
They say laziness, but only I know the truth.
I would help them, if my allergies to glass
did not cause lesions, or my adrenoleukodystrophy
didn’t get in the way of my depth perception
or reaction to aluminum foil.
Oh the woes of utter disease:
there are four types of pneumonia, and I have them all,
I even have ammonia—so leave me be.
Dear lord, I would take off a finger to be rid of this twitch,
and give up a lung to alleviate
my testicular and ovarian disorders-
how the hinder me so,
and rob the diction from my dictionary.
Stop, do not come close; you may catch my bio-warfare,
or the rare strain of Q fever I got from old grapes.
Sadly for me, there is no cure to my nymphomania,
only small doses of vermouth and some crackers
to temporarily dilute the symptoms.
If I knew what was coming next,
I would prepare:
believe, oh, how much I smoke
just so I wont be caught unawares.
When in my lungs cancer opens its eyes,
sickness hurts most with the element of surprise.
Marissa Moss is an
entertainment publicist in New York City and was educated at New
York University. She currently has designs on a little cottage in
Santa Monica, where she will finally finish that first novel, when
not surfing.
|