Is it strange to you, to have so many medications you have to round them up?

Prescriptions with their side effects; supplements with their false hope.

I have to stop to take a pill seven times a day. 

The problem with my shoebox, is that you make me feel like I have something to hide.

I hide all my problems away in a box, a box I got from buying shoes.

I only buy shoes for major life events. I don't fit in shoes right, 

I've never met a comfortable shoe in my life. 

I hate shoes and socks touching my feet, 

I have since before I knew how to tie a shoe.

One time, when I was eight, I was playing in the back yard 

in white little mary janes for some reason, and I had one of those things...

When you're surprised that someone that dumb could turn into an adult one day.

I stepped on a rusty nail on purpose. I mean, how did I live?

Let that sink in.

I thought I could stand on it and spin around like a ballerina. 

I'm honestly surprised my Grandmother didn't slap me when I bawled what happened.

My Grandpa was holding me, a board nailed to my foot.

I had to get a tetanus shot.

A few weeks ago I was awake, insomnia not cured by the magic shoebox.

My dog wanted outside. I put on slip-on sneakers that always slip off a bit, 

and into the dark we went.

I was actually feeling pretty good, my back didn't hurt so bad and the wind felt like

spring dreams.

Then the ground came up and bit me. I told everyone I thought I kicked it, 

but all I remember is a sudden spastic movement in which whatever bit me ran away, 

I dropped the leash, completely not in control of my limbs. I was confused and in pain.

I cried when my dog killed the mole. By stepping on it, not realizing how big he is.

Dogs get to do that, you know, not think about if the shape of their body is right.

He just wanted to play with it. It may have died of fright. 

I didn't know moles bite people. It didn't break skin, 

but I seem to have a permanent print of his teeth on my foot. 

I had to get a tetanus shot.

I bought a pair of heels a couple years ago for a wedding. 

I spent most of the wedding looking for the next place I could sit down.

I never wore them again, 

one of them has been under the middle of my bed for at least nine months. 

The other mysteriously is in the living room.  

I suspect an aborted attempt at assassinating another pair of my shoes by the dog. 

But maybe he just forgot and then remembered he's not supposed to eat shoes.

I keep my daily doses of alchemy and prayers in the extra-large shoebox they came in. 

I failed to be pretty, 

because you can't be pretty in pain

pretty with fatigue

pretty nausea,

pretty sweaty and blotchy and cold to the touch.

Vampires, at least, are not moist. 

I don't have a sexy illness. 

I hate putting makeup on lately because putting it on tires me out too much 

I can't go anywhere to show it off. It's pathetic.

I can at least hide the evidence of the struggle I'm living

when questions surface like

quality of life

do we just call it idiopathic, do we stop searching for the answer

wondering how sick you'll get

how long it will take for your lover to know and accept,

the kindness that death will become? 

I hide these in my shoebox.

I want to worship him. Not because he is divine or even somehow better than me, but because it is how much I need to thank him for being he. Making me laugh, making me shiver, making me quiver. It is want and my needs that make me dream about touching the softness of his lower lip for the thousandth time. Brushes of skin speak a lifetime of love.

I started losing my memory, first "mild cognitive impairment" now "idiopathic dementia-like symptoms" which is really no diagnosis at all. 

I'm 32, I have no neurological disorder that we know of, and I've been tested for almost everything. Five years after I started noticing symptoms, I've found myself on a slippery slope where I'm losing my mind. I cried the first time I watched 'The Taking Of Deborah Morgan,' because I was losing myself, too... and there's nothing to fight against, the monster taking my memory doesn't even have a name. 

One day I forgot my boyfriend. Not like in the car like your wallet, I forgot he existed. Just for a few moments. See, most of the time once someone helps me out with a few details I can sometimes remember. So I started helping myself out with the details, writing notes to myself in the "adult" coloring book calendar on my desk, writing ideas for recipes in my lavender legal pad, doctor's instructions in the keychain of index cards in my purse, writing happy thoughts in my happy journal and sad thoughts in my sad journal, but eventually that stopped because I would forget which one was which. 

I would write letters to the man I live with when he was not home. Because there were things I wanted to tell him, and I could never be sure if I would remember. Sometimes, especially if I was writing while doing some other punding task like playing Tetris or watching the same series on Netflix over and over again, it would become just a stream of random thoughts that I wanted to share with him. Because I didn't have to see his face, I could write whatever I wanted and not be afraid of what his reaction will be. I needn't have worried, once he said he read my poem and I looked at him confused, he said it read like poetry, but my first thought was people would think I was ridiculous if I started writing poetry.

I have put that limitation on every part of my life. Afraid of reactions. Before I was disabled, while I was a pregnant teen in a rural high school I took creative writing. I wanted to be a writer. But I ended up just scratching enough to sometimes make ends meet, I survived, they say. I decided I wanted to live on purpose. I started writing on purpose, writing not to remember later but because I can still imagine, which is terrifying. I forget words all the time, the thesaurus and rhyming dictionaries are my friend because there's a word, just the right word, and I think it ends in -ite, but presque vu keeps me in the dark until I find just one little hint. Finding the right words is so hard sometimes.