The worst part of chronic illness is the side effects

Not the ones drawn out in thin black text across an orange bottle

Where the words would normally be illegible if it weren't for the text Being ingrained in your mind

To a point where you could recite them verbatim

It is the silence

The moment where you sit in a pristine white room with a nice man in his Sunday best telling you that there is nothing wrong

It is the clenching of your throat when he asks

How would you rate your pain

Side effects may include:

Silence

The quieted questions of the people around you

Tiptoeing around the fact that the bags under your eyes

Have become darker and deeper

They ask how you are

But they already know the answer

Side effects may include:

Nassau

Dizziness

Pain

Bloating

The thought of you being a burden to everyone around you

Vomiting

Diarrhea

Insomnia

The realization that you won't get better

Heart attacks

Fainting

Loss of time

The feeling of dread as you pull out your 3-inch thick medical portfolio

The fact that so many things happen all at once that you need a 3-inch medical portfolio to keep your symptoms in check

The crushing truth that you won’t get better

Your body trying to destroy you from the inside out

It isn’t the side effects of the pills

Kept in bottles lined in a row on your shelf

It is the endless depressive spiral

Starting from the fact that these words won't ever make it past my hand

It is the bad doctors

The skeptic professor

The mother who is only trying to help

And you love her for every time she tries

But you wish she would stop because

No matter how much she tries she can’t cure you

Because there isn't a cure

Side effects may include a poem that is

Too long to be interesting

Yet far too short to put into words

How sick and tired I am

Of being sick and tired