Feel Better, Fuck You

You tell me to feel better and I struggle to wrap my tongue

around the word. Better. It tickles my teeth like a feather duster

on a dog’s back, and I squirm away from it, the sentiment so 

saccharine it rots my gums. 

You tell me to feel better, so I reach for the white box by my

bedside, tipping precariously on its corners next to my 

shivering glass of water. The pills get stuck to my throat on the way 

down and I struggle to speak through the chalky texture of pain. I 

wonder if you swallow your shame like I swallow codeine. 

Like a necessity. 

You tell me to feel better and I bite my lips to stop myself from 

screaming. I hate you. I scowl instead, the words burning like acid 

on the way down. I don’t know whether you’ve found the irony in 

telling me to get better when you’re the one making me worse. I dig

under your skin for clues, but all I find is muscle. 

You tell me to feel better and I wrap my fingers around your neck 

and squeeze. Fuck you. I spit in your eyes and in my mind your 

face turns the same shade of blue my heart has been all these years. 

You collapse in my arms, and I drop you to the floor. Just like 

a stone in a well, you make a sound when you hit the bottom. 

My imagination shakes me off, and you’re still standing, 

right there at the foot of my bed, with a hatefully sympathetic smile

scrawled over your teeth with lipstick and a toddler’s hand. 

You tell me to feel better and I pull my knees up to my chest to hide 

from the word. I don’t like the way it pierces my eardrums like 

a sharpened sword, I don’t like the way I’ve heard it from every 

nurse friend cousin colleague I’ve ever talked to, I don’t like the 

way I heard it as a child, a pat on my mother’s shoulder as she lay 

on her sickbed, rotting like bruised fruit, skin 

sagging around her bones, the living image of death herself, and I 

watched her visitors kiss her sunken cheeks with the words “get 

better soon” tattooed onto their lips, as if hollow platitudes were 

going to save her life. 

You tell me to feel better, and I tell you to go fuck yourself. There’s 

a cosy place in hell, smouldering already, for all the people who say

positive thought will overcome anything. I am not an obstacle I need 

to hurdle. I hope you recover from your inability to listen. 

About the Author

Q is a young autistic poet who writes about and for themself and their sister. They have previously been shortlisted for the #merkybooks new writers prize. When they aren't writing, you will find them reading fairytales to their snake.