Sick Day by Caroline Galdi

Sick Day
Caroline Galdi

today it’s like drowning,
or draining, maybe all the life
is draining out of me, maybe it’ll never come back.

mom says when I was born I had perfect
finger and toe nails, mathematically precise crescents
yet to be snipped, clipped, ripped, varnished or gnawed.
I’m thinking about how perfect my baby nails were,
how they’ll never be perfect again, how poorly I imitate
the shape formed in the womb.

The plan is that I will go on living for five-six more decades
pieces slowly falling off of me til
I’m an invalid, sipping broth,
wishing myself back into the past

These escapes are too far off.
Even sleep exhausts me now.

Caroline Galdi has lofty ambitions, but spends too much time on Twitter where she quietly reads tweets as @cyclostome.