Accept

Friday afternoon, quiet in the office. Enough time to think, to write. My mind drifts in and out of poetry, stops to take my daily pill. Keeps me as sane as the world expects me to be. They say your thyroid is shaped like a butterfly. Funny, mine has wrapped itself in larvae. I ask myself once more, Why do I have this disease? How will my body end?

I stare at the clock on my desk, the secondhand climbs between 30 and 45 and slips back down to 30, still ticking. Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up then down again, perpetually stuck in those fifteen seconds, while the other hands stay true to man's time. I wonder if I can fix it, wobble the battery. Nothing changes. I decide to leave it alone in its imperfection, not ask why or how.

by E. M. Soos