You'll Have To Tell The Doctor What You've Been Feeling Like

By Navya Kumar

impossibly (ill) / an alien / clever / but not enough to ignore it / everything hurts/ i’m seeing stars

/ neurologically compromised/ blessed / gifted / the next godamm / (watch your language) /

laungage can’t be seen to / GOD DAMM friggin’ / sherlock holmes / all-seeing / modern prophet

/ intellectually superior / a stupid girl / selfish / numb / or so angry I could (kill) / an astronaut /

brilliant / far away / lying on my stomach / or just lying / I have for (years and years) / a good

girl / an imposter / hot / ( no but like, like) fevery / too loud / my fathers daughter / hormonal

/(mold blossoms from under my skin) (I can’t keep boxers) / my hands don’t work / not all the

time / the sun likes to carve into the back of my skull / tinnitus but permanent / the world is

vibrating / fingers finding my skin but unless they’re tight / I’ll feel my epithelial crawl / running

far far away / throwing up this / ill (ness) / until it’s all gone and I can be / a good girl again / this

is your life now / (if you get this diagnosis) /

if I get it doesn’t it mean / I was always sick / like I could be an octopus / boneless / curling up on

the bottom of the sea floor / swimming far away from /teenage girl(s) / dramatic / sensitive /

shameful / an old man in a weird entrapment of a body / or maybe just a magpie / weak, and

acting like it / shooting the kitchen lights / out / I’m good at birdwatching / I see and hear

everything / I do it to people too / but thats just survival / this quality of a childhood lie is

unheard-of and unheard! / so now it falls to bits / petulant / not right / a walking invitation for

teachers who were popular in school to pick apart / i just need to be asked / and to be able to

answer

/ what is wrong / ? /

(I would tell you that the fluorescents in the nurses (where you send me for my “migraines” )

well to me it is as if a modern day battlefield. the 3rd grade PE class is one I’d press the

cartilage of my ear closed so as not to hear. that you have to understand that my gifted is a boon

but with that comes a bane) different, but not in the fun way / my peers side-eye and whisper

about my different / not quirky, like those lovely speeches my mother gives me / as I swallow

costco pill in the parking lot )

/ what is the problem /

that’s a bad way to ask a question / my problem ? / is that I know what I need / nobody listens to

a liar / a teenage girl / an aspie (even if I was not, I am) / I have skills / I have passions, and I’ve

forced through so many years of this / bull! / my problem is i need to align my ‘giftedness/ with

a world that was not designed for me / I wish people would listen so they could understand why I

can’t /

/ you have to explain all this to the doctor, y'know /

/ ! / like a stomachache in all of you / like a numbness so intense you can’t feel anything ever

again / like a metal bolt is in your trachea / like you can’t speak unless you become very small in

the darkness of your closet / like a loser / like nobody really believes me / like it’s all in my head

/ like sleeping until I wake up

/ a human girl again /

/ she’s a goddamn rocket scientist in the making, sir. Sir! / just needs a couple years of

occupational therapy /

By Navya Kumar