Today, the pain wears pearls, 
sits politely between my ribs. 
I dress her in cardigans 
and loose language: 
"I'm just a little tired." 
No one asks tired how it learned to limp. 

At the pharmacy, 
I forget 
my own name 
but remember 
every pill by shape, 
not color—color lies. 

The woman at checkout 
tells me 
I don’t look sick. 
As if illness should dress in spectacle, 
as if my body forgot to audition 
for their idea of broken. 

Some nights, 
my limbs forget they belong to me. 
Memory peels away like wallpaper 
in a flooded house— 
who was I before the diagnoses piled up 
like eviction notices from my own skin? 

People offer cures 
wrapped in politeness, 
like scripture: 
drink more water, 
think happier thoughts, 
be grateful it’s not worse. 

Sometimes I nod. 
Sometimes I swallow 
their kindness 
like a shard of mirror, 
because even pity 
can feel like attention. 

I am the archive 
of every 
"you're exaggerating," 
every "have you tried yoga?" 
every "maybe it’s in your head." 

Yes, it is. 
It lives there. 
It eats there. 
It sleeps curled beside my dreams, 
drooling its fog into the marrow 
of what I once called normal. 

I carry absence in my spine. 
It pulses when I smile too long. 
I’ve buried friends 
beneath my silence, 
lovers in the shape of questions 
they were too afraid to ask. 

No one sees the room 
beneath my skin— 
where the lights 
flicker 
and all the windows are locked 
from the inside. 

I have written letters 
to the version of me 
they would believe. 
She walks without flinching, 
remembers birthdays, 
laughs without consequence. 

But she does not exist. 
And I am still here. 
Unable 
to find parking 
in the complicated structure 
that is my life.