Strange Invader
Strange invader, from the moment I awaken, you are there -
a disgusting leech that has no name.
I describe you to various doctors.
They tell me they don’t know you
and pretend to believe me on how you appeared in my body.
Yet they are clueless and cannot rid me of you.
I know how you appeared; you got inside me
through injections of an unnecessary evil called Prolia.
Stupidly, I guessed the truth too late
that Prolia was allowing you to take control of me.
By the fourth injection of that toxin within two years,
my tongue burned bright red, and I knew then
you were firmly ensconced inside me.
My brain appears to be your headquarters,
from where you perform your unholy operations.
At first you increased my saliva to the extent that
by injection number 2, I was spitting out my food.
Later you added new weird side effects such as inner spinning.
Though I stopped injections, a few years later
you transformed into other seemingly supernatural forces:
changing my mouth into feeling numerous changing textures.
These would come and go until today
my mouth is left at the bottom with a squishy feeling
that barely is relieved by the chewing of gum.
I press my lips together and they are numb.
You are the bane of my life.
Saliva still flows but not as strongly
as your effects surge through me, primarily on my back.
You have hijacked my nervous system.
Unholy parasite, you malevolently induce unnatural feelings.
The inner spinning changed to something worse.
Sometimes I feel as if I am being pushed from behind.
Other times, the pushing changes into a squeezing sensation.
I have no name for what you really are,
but I have names for your different types of aggravation.
When you squeeze my back, I name you Octopus Tentacles.
Other times you are a hard rain pelting my back.
Often you are a surge that coincides
with an excess amount of saliva in my mouth.
My one relief is to press my back against a chair
or the pillow on my bed; ahhhh, to be in my bed!
Seven years after cancer’s visit, I continue to live with YOU.
People tell me not to bring you up, for then you might go away.
But I waken from nice dreams, and there you are, awaiting me.
Strange invader, you have made the inconvenience of cancer
seem entirely minor compared to you.
Copyright © Andrea Dietrich | Year Posted 2023
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