Sick

by Shel Silverstein

“I cannot go to school today”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox.

And there’s one more – that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be the instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in.

My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There’s a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is …
What? What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is ………….. Saturday?

G’bye, I’m going out to play!”

Heather, here. I’m in my PJ’s surrounded by piles of tissues and lozenge wrappers. Shel Silverstine’s poem, Sick, from Where the Sidewalk Ends plays a broken record in my brain. I loved this poem when I was young. Today it’s driving me nuts. I’ve got a real virus, a cough, and I feel miserable. I’m using every excuse in the book not to get on with writing my final essay for university and my novel synopsis for the SCBWI conference scholarship, both of which are due on Friday.

“I don’t want to go to school!” The child in me screams and kicks.“ It’s not fair.”

I want to pout, hide under the covers, watch mashed potatoes movies (my term for comfort movies you know so well you don’t actually have to watch them)  and sleep until my nose stops dripping, my lungs stop spasming , and my head stops feeling like it’s underwater. I have zombie brain. How am I supposed to write with zombie brain?

The adult in me says, “Stop whining and get on with it. You don’t have time for feeling like crap. No indulging the whining child today. Put down that Star Wars DVD and get to work.”

Today I have to trick myself, pretend I feel great and that my brain is in perfect working condition. Who knows, maybe a fever induced writing session will produce a work of pure genius. *crosses finger*

Pass me a tissue; I’m going out to play.