When the woman says ‘but at least you can pass’
and I run my tongue against the inside of my cheek, tearing teeth
create blood pulp canvas/
and I look down at my manicure, shiny turquoise, middle and
ring finger scuffed on the NYC sidewalk/
and I take out my Medicare card on the bus so I can get a
discount because the check won’t be in for another four days/
and I get lost on the subway, wind up twenty-six blocks farther
than my destination, forced into a cab/
and I stare at the menu, finally tell the server ‘the usual’ because
I’ve lost the words today/
and I get asked by another person on the bus if it was cancer,
or tell me how their loved ones beat “the big C”/
and I forget to refill the medications again, go through another
weekend withdrawal trip/
and the child in the supermarket stares at my picked apart face,
my cuticles no longer an acceptable release/
and all the knives in the house sing about my uneasy blood,
all the alcohol knows my soft spots/
and I look down at my imperfect self
wonder, pass for what?
SaraEve is a performance poet and epilepsy advocate from northeast New Jersey. A 2015 Best of the Net nominee, she has performed for both local and national events, including the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles 2015 Care and Cure Benefit to End Epilepsy in Children and as a reader for Great Weather for MEDIA at the 2016 NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island. She is the author of You Must Be This Tall to Ride (Swimming With Elephants Publishing) and View from the Top of the Ferris Wheel (Clare Songbirds Publishing House). Her third book, Trauma Carnival (Swimming with Elephants Publications), is due early 2019. She loves Instagram: @SaraEve41
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