Diagnosis

They ask what I do

and I smile

the way you smile at doctors

before showing the wound.

I say: I work in an office.

I say: I pay taxes.

I say: I sleep eight hours.

I don't say

I wake at three

to write on napkins

because words rouse me

like fever.

I don't say

I carry a notebook

in my coat pocket

where I record

the last thoughts

of subway strangers.

I don't say

that sometimes

I don't eat

because I'd rather

feed

this animal

eating me from inside

that only quiets

when I give it

verses.

They see

a normal woman

who buys bread

who greets neighbors

who pays bills.

They don't see

hands that shake

when I go three days

without writing

they don't see

my blood

has turned to ink

my lungs

breathe metaphors

my dreams

are poems

I write asleep

and forget upon waking.

The doctor asks:

Do you use any substances?

And I think

of words

I inject

like morphine

of books

I snort

like cocaine

of verses

I drink

until drunk

on meaning.

But I say:

No, doctor.

The purest

addiction

has no name

in the manuals.

There's no clinic

for those who bleed

when they don't write

no therapy

for those who die

a little each day

if they don't create something

to justify

the pain

of being alive.

I leave the office

with a prescription

for anxiety pills.

At home

I take a pencil

and write

until the pills

no longer matter.

This

is my only

legitimate

medicine:

converting

illness

into art

symptom

into verse

fever

into poem.

Tomorrow

I'll lie again

when they ask

what I do

to live.

And I'll keep

writing

to be able

to lie

another day.