I RECENTLY LEARNED CRIPPLE
comes from creep and I thought of course it does. Another
doctor (this time an ophthalmologist) asked how is that
diagnosed? I would say it creeps up on you, but he wouldn’t
get it. I bet a lot of us don’t make the joke. I am in great
company. I have all kinds of family. For the first year
I didn’t identify as disabled but then it crept up on me.
For the first year I often felt fine. Lately I feel less and less.
Lately I. How is that diagnosed? and I forget all
the blood tests I passed so my mother could cry. I didn’t
cry. I was waiting on that thing WebMD had promised me
when my feet went numb. And that first neurologist,
she was the worst kind of creep, but she delivered.
UPGRADE U
At night you tell me fiction is a blunt instrument I tell
you I am my own blunt instrument. I’m going through
a tunnel the call broke. Something data service whatever.
Keep calling. What I mean it is easier to want unfamiliar
people. On TV a man said he’d need to grow the most
giant penis to cross the gap to his wife. It’s metaphysical
or that’s what I say when I don’t understand. It is hard for
a poem without someone’s name in it to make the person
feel anything this is a worry I have. I’m going through a
tunnel you wouldn’t know but I’m saying your name over
and over. Hid your dick in an app. So install your new
software. Come with me to the new almost better thing.
Cade Leebron holds an MFA from Ohio State, where she served as an editor at The Journal. She podcasts at The Cold Take and serves as managing editor of Us For President. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Find her online at www.mslifeisbestlife.com, or on Twitter @CadeyLadey
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