romanticizing the DNA I’ve been given until the r/illnessfakers subreddit fixates on my smile
By Ennis Rook Bashe
By Ennis Rook Bashe
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.