sickness

A poem about mental illness.

i’m not a doctor but i am a very good liar,

and i can pull a needle through skin

if i want to, and i can ask you where

it hurts and you

can say ‘right here’ and

i will care about that.

.

i ask you where it hurts

and you reveal lines from your temple to

the vacancy of your open throat,

and your fingers stumble at every gap

between your ribcage and you ask me

if i can feel it.

your lungs push out used air like a janitor

mops a dirty floor, and i nod.

.

i find room between my arms

and my chest and call it yours.

i fix my ear to your chest

like a stethoscope and listen for the

aching.

.

when i started hearing voices

i wondered why i couldn’t fix them,

and you still inhabited the right side

of my body every night

as you tried to soothe me

with the comatose words

that you called ‘real,’

and so i wondered

if this was pain.

.

i wondered if pain had to be felt

in the back of the throat to be real,

if you could be well of body

but ill of self,

and if i could die before my body did.

.

you asked me where it hurt

and i said everywhere.

i looked for a place to point

but couldn’t find one.

i pointed to you and to the corner

of the room where spirits stood,

to the places where dismembered words

hung like oxygen masks

in the event of an emergency.

i told you about the voices

that you couldn’t hear, told you

that they were sick.

.

‘you are not a doctor,’

you whispered. ‘ and you cannot save

what is not there.’

and so i pressed my face to yours,

closed my eyes and tried

to hear what was in your head

and what the silence must be like

without a dozen voices

and hands that work like heart-monitors

that worry about your breath,

and i am not a doctor

but i am hurt

and i am sick

and i am trying to heal

and save

and listen.

Reviews

[Emily B]

oh, oh, these words hit me hard where i live and breathe

i know what it is to listen to heart beats, my hands heal when i love enough

[Temerity]

I appreciate the sentiment; it's always reassuring to know that others relate to such intimate things.