Sick

Hate being sick.

When I get sick, it starts in my throat. Scratchy cardboard from my tonsils to my voice box. Cat-scratching cardboard.

Keee-skirtch

Moves, it's own volition, to my lungs. Hacking and gooey around my heart, constricting, a boa of green phlegm. Can't breathe. Drowning.

Huh-uuuuh. Huh-uuuuuh.

Crawling, killing me, up into my skull. Inside my nose, behind it, inside the cavity between the world and my brain. A gremlin's paw clutching to free itself. Shaking loose my sinuses, my nose discharging, two garden hoses spraying down yellow and clear gunk with no warning. Spewing it out, my body fighting the gremlin's paw.

& (a diagram of the inside of my nose battling the gremlin's paw)

Day seven — sleep.

Wake up — alert.

Until the next time.