Prompted

Inspirational song: Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits)

I'm curious. If you were told that your partner had a serious disease that you knew almost nothing about, would you do maybe five minutes of internet research? I've asked three times now for a certain someone to educate himself on it, and still he resists. He was the first one to treat me like I was being an attention-seeking drama queen (those are my words) for the last two and a half decades. Why would I imagine he would respond when prompted to read about this? After two years he still refuses to take my gluten-free/grain-free needs seriously enough to legitimize them by reading a single sentence on the subject. He looks away and closes his mind when I speak something on the subject out loud.

Can you tell that I've had to go through emotional stages with this just like one does with grief? I keep flashing back to anger, and there's almost no one who hasn't been the target of my resentment over the last five days. I can think of two or at most three people who believed me all along. Trust me, I know exactly who they are.

I never felt like being around people today, but I forced myself to do it. I had to have labs run (and I had to call and ask to have my orders faxed to the lab, because again they couldn't find them in the computer). It was a Rotary day, and for all that I was tired and weak from blood draws, I enjoyed my lunch there very much. I made myself go to the local pharmacy when I failed yet again to nap (almost forgot I was supposed to be on mega doses of Vitamin D now). And then I refused to let myself skip out on the writers group tonight. I had challenged myself to do something absolutely new for tonight. We were all supposed to write to the prompt "A Simple Plan." I have not attempted to write poetry since somewhere during the Reagan administration, I'm pretty sure. To see whether I was capable, I made myself write my first sonnet since we were assigned them in 10th grade or so. It was difficult AF. I struggled with it for three days, but I did it in time. I printed it out for people to see the visual pun, and I stood and read it aloud (the only words I spoke all night--I was too tired for anything else). It was silly and contrived and awkward, and I really enjoyed the challenge. I don't know whether I will ever try it again. I will put the full poem here following this morning's photo from on the way to the lab.

No matter what the other kids may do

Or how much extra work I force on me

This art is all I have to offer you

Although I wish I’d choose something easy

Simplification turns my heart stone cold

I must embellish what I do and say

My foolish notions push me to be bold

Poetic aspirations win the day

Leave off the fear that I can only fail

Embrace dangerous rhymes in quatrains three

Plod most inelegantly down this trail

Love what I’ve done in its grotesque beauty

Anne had no skill for a poetic verse

Now her first sonnet’s done; it could be worse