dirty air

Stopped telling people

At seven.

Nobody believed me.

Well.

Mother, at five, when I whispered

There’s dirty air and it makes me feel bad.

She wanted me to be a doctor. Nurse.

Something like that.

Still don’t know how

My curse

Could have helped people.

I make collection calls

Now, instead.

Get called nasty names.

I deserve it I suppose.

Even if

Dirty air

Killed your wife,

I’ll still ask for money.

When father died

I inherited not quite enough. Just quite not enough.

Still have to work.

But I dropped out of high school Forever ago.

Couldn’t take it.

Always saw it.

Everywhere.

All of it.

Influenza.

Rhinovirus.

Norovirus.

Tuberculosis, once.

I tried to tell them

About that one.

Overactive imagination

They said.

I'm still scared

Sometimes

That I caught it

Even though father paid for a test

When multiple students tested Positive.

One died.

It makes the world pretty I guess.

Colds are blue.

Influenza, red.

Coronavirus was pink.

TB was neon green

That one was horrifying.

But now I live in my

Small little house

And never leave.

Don’t even have to see

The man who delivers my groceries.

I worry

Sometimes

That they'll find out.

Learn it wasn't an accident.

Learn the policy signatures

Were forged.

What defense could I offer

That they would

Believe?

Your Honor

I see pathogens in the air

And they're everywhere

And I got too scared to leave the house

And he was

He was

He was

He was going to kick me out.

Do you know what's out there?

He never understood.

Besides.

I saw

When he shoved mother

Down

The

Stairs.

So really

It was just

Justice.

Or self-defense. It's not as if I didn't

Love him

Even with it all.

So please.

Don't put me in the prison

With so much dirty air.