I am just getting over my first sick of the year (I’m not counting the vaccines–both of which put me under for two days) and spent an evening in a thick fog of Nyquil writing a poem about feeling like…bleh. After my Covid test came back negative (you never know), there was a bit of a relief in me, and I had enough clarity to do some revising–even though my head was a balloon.
I was looking for anything that would help me feel better.
I think catharsis is supposed to just cleanse the spirit, so writing poetry to get over tangible manifestations must be called something else…I’m not really sure what that is, but it’s probably also just catharsis.
I hope you enjoy this poem.
Under the Weather
My puffed-up head is a cloud
Gray skies above swell
The rain dribbles endlessly
Runny water leaks
From the drainpipe
…
I catch most of the rainfall
In a scrunched-up tissue
Tossing it out
I feed the thunderhead relief
And lie down on a cumulous bed
…
“Sunshine on the horizon,” says the weatherman.
“Get ready for extreme heat,” he adds.
I shiver in the night as the cold breaks
My heating pad jacks my temperature to summer
It’s a sizzling heat beneath the sheets
…
I spend the next day in a haze
The water pours outside
Suddenly in the afternoon
The sun peaks, my nose clears
Unending blue skies stretch in my head
