There was so much I wanted to tell you this week.
An essay sung through me so I tried to hurry home.
But I was stuck in traffic,
I was stuck on the phone with my insurance company,
I was stuck on the couch within my tight skin.
I tried to hold it inside me long enough, the hot-thrill lava of it flowing through me. The story I wanted to tell you was universal and true, and I knew it would speak to you.
There was so much I wanted to say to you. But I went to the doctor for an eye exam and cried in the car home
Before I knew he didn’t take my insurance anymore,
Before I had to call another doctor and another,
Before I waited on hold and wrote down fax numbers,
Before I told nice young strangers my birthdate that probably sounds ancient to them but really is too young to have to ask them will my medical insurance cover this if it’s related to my diabetes
and will my medical insurance cover it if it’s glaucoma
because I don’t have vision insurance because I have perfect vision
but I’m maybe going blind.
I wanted to write a story out for you, hands racing past the spin of my mind.
But I had to wait at the pharmacy to get insulin,
I had to wait at the pharmacy to get needles,
I had to wait at the pharmacy to pick up my glucose monitor and press it through the bleeding membrane of my arm after it malfunctioned and couldn’t insert itself.
I had to wait at the pharmacy again because the needle bent within me and I had to yank it right out.
I had to buy a new monitor on my credit card because my insurance only paid for the one that broke.
The story was still alive that night when I got in bed, but I was too tired to tell it, so I tucked it in for the morning when I would be new and able to breathe and able to run it around the block again.
But I had to wake up when my low glucose alarm went off and eat ice cream,
I had to wake up when my low glucose alarm went off and eat honey,
I had to wake up and eat a handful of sweet granola when I just wanted to sleep.
I couldn’t find the story in the morning, but I had to take the kids to school and go to work anyway.
I had to keep going so I had to let it go.
This isn’t the story I wanted to tell you and I’m not sure I should. The sick Shawna is separate from the me I share on here and the me I am when I’m walking down the street,
As alive as anyone.
As alive as I’ll ever be.
Stronger than I’ve ever been.
Sicker than I’ve ever been.
Scared and gorgeous and so tired I could lie down right in the mud and let go of everything and maybe never pick it up again.
Maybe pick it up sooner than I think and fan it out for you like a peacock’s feathers, telling you something universal and true.
👍
from Ryan on q account
I read this at school when i probably should have been working on an essay that was due, It almost made me cry thank you