The Sickness
Location
After the first hack I knew it was no cold.
I think of it with wonder now
and wonder how much mucous it measured to be.
Diagnosed a week after agony,
Pneumonia.
The thing your mother fears when you
forget your gloves, your coat,
your socks.
Fatigue kept me down and mucous kept me up.
Sputum arose in 10 minute intervals,
the big ones in 20.
Like vomit without the acid, the chucks.
Just thick and gold and brown and green and red.
I always pictures the stuff balls scaling my esophagus,
like desperate slugs, searching for freedom,
tickling my throat to be released.
The hacking came so often that
my family no longer flinched at the painful sounds
It'd never disrupt their programs again
And now,
the mucous is heavy in allergy season
my lungs hold the grudge
For now they are not whole are
forced to function through scarring that does not.