Jessica Gazzola

I have never been hospitalized as a sick person until now; only well with babe in arm, grateful for food prepared and luminous face to behold.  But being poked and prodded and asked for bowel history feels different without a wriggling byproduct to render it all worthwhile

I like to believe circumstances, even unpleasant ones, visit me like messengers of good news.  Perhaps grotesque, oozing abscess is saying, “Kick back!  Read a book!  Rest a while.”  But I feel sick weak and tired outside of my lovely dance of activity and quiet.  In the absence of activity there is only… abscess and blood turning foul.  What are you?  Why did you decide to visit me and pour your poison into my nicely flowing stream?  Now my insides are doused with noxious bleach.  You must know how I hate sterility, how I love creative mess and the smell of dirt?!