As I Lie Dying

There's only one downside to the advent of autumn, and that's getting sick at the first severe drop in temperature. Damn this humidity, and damn this cold. I don't know about you guys, but when I get sick, all I want to do is lie in a heap of my own misery and pray for death.

It gets you thinking, though, since you're incapable of anything more than putting on old episodes of Futurama and making mug after mug of tea. Funny how an art form that thrives on misery should have so little about this fundamental unhappiness.


As I Lie Dying

There aren't many poems on being sick.
I thought of that today as I lay prone
upon my sweaty bed, hemmed in by
half-drunk cups of juice and wads of snot
balled up in tissue. Gross, I know, but true;
it's part of life, like death, a shitty job,
or saying that you love someone you don't,
or taking out the trash on Monday night.
Seems there should be poems written of it.
Mundane, perhaps, but poignant nonetheless:
a quiet struggle on these hapless sheets.
There is no nobler fight than where I lie,
evaluating where I am and why,
and wishing I were better than I was.