an insiders guide on how to be sick An Insider’s Guide on How to be Sick Never say the words ‘this is not my life’ This pain that wakes you screaming in the muzzle of the night This pain that woke your lover, chased her to another room to another life This fevered fainting This tremorring chest This mangled kite This panic like a cave of bats This nurse drawing blood wearing doubled gloves This insurance doesn’t cover that This hurried paycheck of doctor after doctor after doctor This stethoscope that never hears your heart ... Say ‘This is my life This is my precious life This is how badly I want to live’ Say Sometimes you have to keep pulling yourself up by the whip Take punch after punch to the face forward To the head up And still uncurl the fist of your grief like a warm blanket on the cool earth of your faith Say every waiting room is the kiln where you will finally take shape to fit into the keyhole of your own gritty heart .... Lesson #1 through infinity You will never have a greater opportunity to learn to love your enemy than when your enemy is your own red blood Truce is a word made of velvet Truce is a word made of velvet Andria Gibson