my mother looks at me
and says in a voice
hard at the edges:

you don’t look sick.

i smile.

i guess i should be grateful
that I do not have the
sunken cheeks and the
chapped lips and the
grey pallor
associated with the
sick-dying-dead

but I cannot muster the energy
to be anything more than polite.

or maybe
I should be indignant.
not looking sick has made me sicker,
my engorged neck is the only sign that
something is wrong
and not quite even that
because since i am always cold
even that is covered up.

i look okay-
healthy,
happy.

and when i ask a doctor about the fact
that I cannot sit up on a stool
or hold a pencil for very long
or wear a backpack to school
of how on some days,
how I cannot walk
at all-
they say the same words to me.

you don’t look sick.

and every time i hear those words,
i am spitting in the face of the doctor
who told me, voice dripping
with poison sugar
“just take advil, honey”
and i am spitting in the face of the
nights when four am is the
witching hour.

every time i hear those words
i am spitting in the face
of the speaker.

this is all in my head, of course-
like i said,
but I cannot muster the energy
to be anything more than polite.