The old Reader’s Digest in the waiting room defines the best medicine
A doctor tells me to align my joints
“More normally”
to “play a sport”
that I will be “cured by
sleeping better”
that every ache or cough or injury is just
(& also Justice)
because I am fat.
A doctor tells me, when I am struggling to stay alive
when I cannot eat from sorrow my
spirit made hollow from
Grief, that
The diminishing number on the hallway scale is
“a good problem to have.”
A doctor smirks as she orders me
to lift my breasts
the apron of my belly
the folded softness of my thighs aside
to check for skin cancer.
I hear a doctor’s snide laughter in the hallway
after.
5 thoughts on "The old Reader’s Digest in the waiting room defines the best medicine"
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I really appreciate this. I love how you use repetition and turn to your title at the conclusion.
I feel this very deeply. Thank you for sharing!
Oof. I want to punch doctors or just let my health go to pot just to avoid hearing the “word” Ozempic one more time. I feel this in my fat, achy, insomniac joints.
<3
chilling poem that raised the hair on my arms