What do you know? 

I tell my friend 
I didn’t apply for a scholarship 
because I knew I’d be sick around that time. 

She tilts her head. 
“How would you know you’d be sick?”

To her, it sounds absurd. Unbelievable. 
Like I’m trying to predict a storm 
with no clouds in sight. 

But how do I explain 
that when you live in a body like mine, 
you feel the storm before the clouds form 
and thunder ever arrives? 

That chronic illness teaches you
to read your body like a fault line? 
It steals your agency 
quietly, consistently, 
until you no longer plan a life— 
you anticipate a collapse.

It shreds your calendar 
and replaces it with caution tape.  
You learn to trace the patterns. 
You mark the seasons of flare-ups 
like someone studying the moon.

How stress carves its way into your gut, 
how exhaustion lives in your bones 
like a tenant you never approved. 
How joy can even be dangerous 
because laughter sometimes leads to seizures.

You become a timekeeper, 
map the weeks your body might fail, 
the hours you’ll likely spend in bed, 
the days your chest will tighten, 
your stomach revolt, 
your limbs betray you
Your body shuts down.  

You become your own medical archive− 
an encyclopaedia of symptoms and triggers, 
appointments and aftershocks. 
You don’t just carry a body,  
you carry forecasts, 
risk assessments, 
survival plans. 

How do I tell her 
that what feels absurd to her 
has become my second nature? 
That I’ve become a watcher of symptoms,  
A reluctant prophet of pain?  

It’s preparation, 
it’s what it means to survive 
when your body forgets how to cooperate. 
Backup plans for backup plans 
In case my body declares war on a Tuesday. 

That while the world moves forward, 
I measure time in pills, 
pauses, 
and what I’ve had to give up 
before I even had the chance to try. 
 
 

Dreams 
I look at my legs− 
the same legs that once danced in heels, 
carried me into rooms 
like I belonged there,  
like I was made of stardust and boldness,  
each step echoing confidence. 
Now they flinch at the thought of wearing heels. 
My feet levelled to earth,  
they refuse to remember 
what it felt like to stand tall. 

As a child, I had grand dreams, 
limitless ambition. 
Now, some days, 
just getting out of bed 
feels like climbing a mountain  
inside my own skin. 
Sometimes, even breathing 
feels like labour. 
I used to be the fashion girl, 
bold prints, bright colours, 
fabric that danced with my body. 
Now clothes hang on my body like burdens, 
too stiff for a soul  
that’s grown too tired to dress up 
So I undress more than I dress 
because everything feels too tight 
for a soul that needs space to breathe. 

My eyes, once my pride, 
once the mirror people gazed into, 
have dimmed. 
Even after years behind glasses, 
I still squint at the world, 
and most times.     
it disappears completely.
 
My stomach, once carefree, 
now turns food into a threat 
and rages in rebellion.  
It retches, rejects, 
and clings to pills 
to keep me alive. 
My mind, once razor-sharp, 
once the star of every room, 
is now clouded in fog and memory loss. 
I forget words mid-sentence. 
I forget memories.  
I reread texts and still don’t understand. 
Excellence has become a memory. 
Sometimes I even forget the alarms 
that remind my body how to survive
another day it no longer asks for.
 
Doctors try to label it.
They line up the diagnoses like trophies of suffering: 
Epilepsy. GERD. IBS. Keratoconus, Chronic fatigue. 
They say them like announcements. 
I carry them like bricks. 

My body is no longer a body, 
it’s a battlefield. 
A story. 
A scream. 
A slow unravelling. 
And if you listen closely, you’ll hear it whispering: 
“I am tired. 
I am trying. 
I am still here.”