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poetry & prose

The "IC"

 

She has asthma

He has arthritis

She has cancer

He has colitis

 

A person with alzheimer’s

A person with leukemia

A person with irritable bowel syndrome

A person with high fever

 

She’s got endometriosis

She’s got osteoporosis

He’s got multiple sclerosis

He’s got cystic fibrosis

 

A person

Still one of us

Illness imposition

A person

One of them

Is his condition

A schizophrenic

Paraplegic

Epileptic too

You are your disease

You’re called it

So it’s true

 

Some of us live in

a demarcated existence

Why is it this way?

The “IC”

They must say

 

It’s so hectic

Being a diabetic

I am not this noun

In which to be tied down

 

Why can’t I be me?

I am not a disease

I'm a person, like you, who breathes

I have type 1 diabetes

 

-JJ

The 'IC'
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