If insulin is biologically as accessible to you as clean water, an afterthought as the tap pours freely- do not put words in our dry mouths, having never dwelled in the desert all this time.
poem
Masks
If it is too much to wear a mask
for thirty-four seconds
in the peppers and carrots aisle,
Imagine what it feels like
to stab your abdomen
with a gigantic Dexcom CGM needle
every week or so,
Taping a foreign device on your body
through showers and swimming pools,
on your wedding day
donning a mask again at happy hour
To be privileged by virtue of the pain
we don’t discuss
The incessant buzzing in your ear
that something is almost always ‘wrong’
What if we were just kind enough
to care about it all
about each other
anyway?
Healthcare, untitled.
What would you be doing right now /
if you were not already doing something else /
to survive the costs of healthcare?
Monthly Post
Is it obsessive-compulsive behavior to post here each month for the sake of writing somewhat regularly? Or is it simply hope? Perhaps this- once a source of joy, a shared mission, will feel that way again, somehow.
another month
by which to create
Representation
If you step in the logical flaw rabbit hole
of proclaiming to represent
ALL PEOPLE WITH DIABETES!!!!!,
then the least you can do is
own it.
Was your six-figure “non-profit executive” salary there
to represent Shane Patrick Boyle
when Go Fund Me fell fifty dollars short?
Have you ever seen a human being in DKA,
breathing labored, blood poisoned?
Would you look her in the eye
and still have the audacity to suggest,
“This could all be easier
if you just took the bus to Walmart,
bought cheap insulin there,
took a wild guess at a 3:52 am dose
of one of the most powerful Rx’s on earth.”
Her breathing is labored.
Her blood is poisoned.
There is no more room on this bus.
I’ve written long enough
to know that I, too,
have made mistakes.
The ‘disease warrior’ metaphors
The representation claims
Forgetting to check my privilege
at the coat rack
Running my mouth too loudly
to listen
How can we pretend to represent
all people with diabetes
when we have strong Wi-Fi connections
the acquired ability to read and write
the color of the skin we were born with
the restocked fridge,
while so many of our diabetes brothers and sisters
are dying slowly and painfully
without access to the prescribed air
we breathe?
Our stories are the only ones we can tell fully.
To say otherwise is to snuff out others’ lights
which have already borne enough pain.
There has to be a better way
to make room on this bus.
Sunrise
⛅️
to be well
very much so
I want
This is also for
writing shitty, third-string poetry. boldly dubbing it ‘poetry’ anyway. then rhyming poetry with poetry in a so-called poem. knowing that we all have to start somewhere and this is your clean slate. the previous writer at the coffee shop gifted a warm window seat, the free Wi-Fi password, and a slightly weathered stick of chalk, neon pink. the freckles on our fingertips glow in the dark.
This is for
the unpublished drafts
the phone notes
the changing of the font
and calling that a poem
the “for what it’s worth I’m sorry”
if sorry could be plural
for existing, maybe
for being there, sometimes
for not being there, enough
for showing up
and talking down
for myself
for others
for hitting “publish”
because your brain demands
at 11:33 pm Eastern Standard Time
that this is right
that this has to get out
that these prepositions
go against everything
that middle school grammar book said
when you read it obsessively
to prepare for a pop quiz
so you could always be the best
on paper, that is
but you don’t care
about those silly rules
anymore
Que será, será.
Gray
is a poem
I’m still learning
how to write.
The Good Samaritan Lot
“This parking lot is open until full.
Brought to you by the Church
across the way. Give what you can.
Pay it forward. Come again.”
Despite the red paint peeling back,
the sign still read All Are Welcome.
I sobbed in my car
while the waitress
from the pretentious lunch
we’d attended
twenty minutes prior
smoked her cigarette
and pretended not to notice
the rivers of mascara
flowing down my face.
The waitress “didn’t notice”
not because she was cruel,
but because of my stubborn pride
and all. The cigarette ash
fell to the green earth.
I drove away, wanting to hit the gas
but circled back to where I started
Stuffed ten dollars into the donation box
And for the first time that long-ago day,
it was enough. It was simply enough.
Very Light, No Sugar 