She has a shoebox full of pills

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.