I can no longer be bothered to leave my room. I sleep most of the time. In the few moments that I’m awake I sit in bed or stare out the window at the hot sun beating down, the heat waves coming off the pitch black pavement. In all my years of living in this ramshackle house I never noticed the small things, like how the windowpane is cracked at the top and how the nail on my bed is slightly crooked to the left. Or how our neighbor’s door is the same cream color as vanilla ice cream; the doorknob a contrasting copper. I never noticed the family of robins that’s home is perched right outside my window. The three bright blue chicks hatched about a week ago while I was asleep.
I sit and listen to my mom cry because of overdue bills, hospital payments we can’t afford, and of course how her only daughter is on the brink of death. I listen as I watch the robins skitter around on the cracked black driveway without a care in the world. I watch the chicks learn to fly with more optimism and patience than I had in my better days.
I sit with my blanket wrapped around me despite the sweltering temperatures. I feel the sweat pouring down my body soaking me to the bone. But I don’t mind, it reminds me that I’m still alive. That I’m still able to feel something like heat or sweat. I draw patterns in the chocolate colored fuzz like I used to when I was little; It calms me down.
My mom and the doctors think I’m oblivious to what is happening to me. But I know. I can feel it. I can hear the whispered conversations between doctors when they think I’m asleep. I see the sympathetic looks they give me as they check my vitals. The looks that says "I hope that never happens to me."
My muscles are sore; I constantly feel as if I'd just ran a marathon. I can’t move without being reminded of it. I think my lungs are becoming weaker as well, as it is getting difficult to breathe. I have to focus on breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. The doctors gave me breathing exercises; they don’t seem to be working.
I’m not sure I can take much more of this. My body is weak and frail. I don’t know if i’ll even make it through the next week. I don’t think my body can take much more. I don’t think I can take much more.