peppermint wheels

First sick day in a year,  

The room exhales me,  

Breathing me in, humid,  

Like a gilded pair of lungs.  

Near billowing sheets where I lie,  

A bucket, once held to my chest,  

Now only contains my vomit,  

All I had to offer.  

My childhood illnesses linger nearby,

As my dead mother’s distant voice  

Accusing me of faking again.

As if, after a lifetime of trying to get out,

I’d lie to stay in. A felony for a penny gained.  

How many truths of childhood were false?  

A single serving of sugar,  

With a fable on the packet,  

A story sweetened with a teaspoon,  

Spinning peppermint till stripes fade.  

Returned to youth and

The stories I was told,  

Like bricks, built a wall in my chest,  

Proclaiming, "Yes, this is who you are, child."  

Like Tibetan monks who vomit on command,  

Why not a nine-year-old girl?

Yes, for mom, vomit could be faked.

If this is how her brain worked,

What she believed, or an easier

Excuse to an inconvenient child,

I will never know. I will die not knowing.

Was I faking then?  

Am I faking now?  

Have I ever faked?

Questions I can’t answer  

As I email my boss.  

Gone are the days  

Of wondering if I sounded sick enough.  

Crumbling mortar—  

If even one brick is false,  

One story just a tale,  

Tear down the wall, start again,

Build from what I choose,  

For if I am to be made of lies,  

Let them be my own.