romanticizing the DNA I’ve been given until the r/illnessfakers subreddit fixates on my smile

refresh my Instagram, breath held

shriek in anguish when you see I often stand

five hundred algorithm-feeding howls of horror at every hospital visit

teach yourself invented sciences

to prove I don’t exist.

hunched over screens hyperanalyzing strangers

you gripe about those folks who don’t do enough with their lives

the upvotes when you say “they’re not sick” are your greatest achievement

you write yourself into faceless minor antagonist

hateful face in the mob

burn the witch, kill the beast

“Go outside,” you growl at the dying

faces backlit by screens

as the objects of your derision give TED talks, dance barefoot on a Malibu beach,

greet every uncertain second remaining

with a hope that doesn’t know your name.

I want to be so successful it dissects your arteries.

I want to shine so unmissably it dislocates your spines.

About the Author

Ennis Bashe is an Elgin Award-nominated poet and Lesfic Bard Award-winning romance novelist whose work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Cricket, and Liminality Magazine. Their most recent chapbook, Beautiful Malady, is available through Interstellar Flight Press. You can find more of their writing at https://linktr.ee/ennisrookbashe.