My greatest wish
Is that one day someone will love me,
Not for what I can give them,
But because I have intrinsic value myself.
My greatest wish is that one day
My story will not be too much
But just the right amount
Of ME.

Could mean brushing my hair
Or you combing my emotions for entry points.
Either way,
Untangling the knots
HURTS.

When I was waist high,
Freckles are angels kisses,
And bedtime seemed a comeuppance
Years old,
I used to wish to grow up in effort to shed my
Child's problems.
Now that the years have raced past,
I've grown into an adult's body
Along with adult problems,
And I wish I hadn't pleaded with the fates
To hurry it onward so.

The hardest thing to reconcile
Is that you genuinely believed you love me,
And I truly loved you.
Now, I confuse gentle touch for hostile
Because you were wonderfully gentle
Until you weren't,
Before returning to gentle again.
The hardest part to reconcile is how you could be "so in love,"
Yet in that moment,
You were only concerned for your pleasure.
With a love like that,
I would never need enemies.

My heartbeat trips over its own feet,
Running as if towards the greatest surprise
And simultaneously from the end of the world.

Sometimes I think that if my heart beats fast enough,
It could outrun this feeling,
Like if I reach a high enough BPM,
I might suddenly feel as if the world makes sense again.
I might not feel like I am drowning
In a vat of electrically charged water
Or trying to plug up the holes from which my emotions keep bleeding.
I think my heart believes that a little tachycardia might cure me,
Might purify me of this pain.
Why else would it speed onwards so?

You are a symphony of skin,
Perfect harmony of two souls.
You are the quarter rest of skipped heartbeats,
Electric run of mind,
Thoughts cascading
Like 16th notes descending the treble clef.
You are the forbidden crescendo,
Pulse rising to the tune of lips melded together.
You are my favorite melody,
Wild, unique, so familiar and yet new,
Playing in my mind on repeat.

They're dividing up my grandmother's jewelry,
An act that feels more final than death.
I like to think she rests easy as she watches
The women she loves wear what was once hers.
They ask me to choose my top 3 pieces,
And how do I?
How do I choose which pieces of her I want to wear on my body
Like armor, like memories of made of gold or silver?
How do I choose between her trip to the Met Museum
Or the pin with the propeller signalling she was the
First licensed female pilot in the state of Kentucky?
What does it say about me this is the one time I wish she hadn't gotten her wings?
I want to wear her artist spirit.
I already have her poet's blood running through me.
This woman, in all her fiery, tender ways
Touches my life.
I hope she'd be proud I'm wearing her jewelry.
So many decisions to make.

My mom always tell me that the doctors
Took heroic efforts to save my life,
That they went above and beyond the call of duty,
That if they hadn't thought me too
"Smart" and "beautiful" and "having the whole world going for me,"
I would be dead.
Number one: No one's chance of survival should depend on
Their looks, their opportunities, their cognitive ability.
Number two: None of it should've been necessary.
My text messages in the evening hours of 2/12/19
Are filled with the likes of "I don't feel safe,"
"I hate myself,"
"I am suicidal."
Their responses were simply,
"Do the best you can" and "Talk to the RA."
Yet they were surprised when 1 AM on 2/13/19
Found me in a hospital bed undergoing resuscitation.
Still,
When I woke up 10 days later,
They all wanted to know, "Why didn't you tell anybody?"

You sip on self pity
Now that wine has been vanquished from the house.
Bitter insults leaving your tongue
Like the smell of alcohol on your breath
As you pinned me to the mattress all those nights ago.
You accuse me of being like the rest,
Always leaving you in your worst moments.
Never had I questioned why they left.
You tell me to run,
For you only abuse those you love.
I had thought that your overcritical mind was exaggerating.
I wish I had seen those for what they were,
A warning,
Not some misplaced self hatred.
It is proof of my love that you seek,
The thrill of me chasing you as you degrade and run away
That fuels your affection for me.
You ask me to tell you I love you.
You ask me to assure you I will never leave.
You want me to beg you to stay.
I cannot.
I once loved you.
I am leaving you.
There will be no need when I am done.

He is scared that I'll go someplace he can't reach me,
So he's chosen not to connect at all.
I do not intend to be absent,
But I wish he knew
It hurts equally to regret love not given
As it does to lose love you've given your all.
Regretting time not spent and care not shown
Is a special kind of hell I do not wish upon him.

Teach me to go
Where the sky meets the ocean,
My soul is at peace,
And my heart isn't broken.

I am the apocalypse,
Blood red sky that hangs over muddy water.
I am the fire that makes ashes
Out of endeavors to be more and better.
I am the poison in the well,
Taint that slithers beneath your skin.
They should've warned you
That the darkest things come in the nicest packages.
Do you dare to open mine?

He said he loved me,
So why did he **** me?

If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that blood speaks in run on sentences,
Slick syllables flow out of damaged veins like rabid speech
And end in ellipses promising that more will be forthcoming.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that antibacterial soap could never wash the sins out
Enough to make me the saint they always hoped I'd be,
And I am steeped in "nice girl" expectations that never came to fruition.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that my brain went to battle with my body at the age of 12,
And now my eyes have seen more than my heart can hold,
So I keep my emotions locked up like prisoners of war,
Hoping that solitary confinement will lessen their ability to contuse my soul.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that guitar strings leave calluses but release heartache,
That music and poetry are borne of the same cloth and stitch the same wounds.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that I've been trying to stitch my own wounds
Since I was a little girl,
Confused and afraid in a world that tried to **** all that was beautiful and different about her.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that this body loves to twirl and flap and rock, and shimmy,
That I am a perpetual motion machine designed to move with the tune of my own feet.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you I've made some ugly scars and beautiful art,
That the line between the two is proportional to my pain threshold.
Sometimes suffering demands that my hands commit crimes against my skin,
But I've learned that I can bleed ink instead of blood.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that I am often overwhelmed by the darkness of the night sky,
The way the blackness encroaches on the moonlight,
But there's no eloquent speech to convey the way the stars ignite hope in my chest,
Kindle optimism in my heart.
I am desperate to hold on to it.
If my hands could talk,
They'd tell you that I am sometimes so human it cuts me,
But I am learning how to exist within that humanity.
If my hands could talk,
They'd end this poem in a semi colon
Because there's still so much they have to say;

I am terrified of what I may do to myself if I let my guard down.
It's not that I don't want to be happy.
It's that at my core,
I do not trust myself.

Find me infinity
So we can travel there together.

In remembrance of you today,
That you existed and touched this Earth
With loving hands.
Now, we've lost another in a similar way.
Keep him safe as he passes on.
You matter.
You are loved.
In remembrance of you today,
The joy you brought
And the kindness you bestowed.
My grief comes in waves,
But I never regret knowing you.
In remembrance of you today.
I miss you from Earth.

Irritation is the dragon
That breathes fire and destruction
Should I dare to open my mouth.

I will never tell them
Of the man in hospital chair beside me,
Chest hair poking through blue paper scrubs,
More than was on his head.
His locks like dull gray wires on scalp,
Jutting into the air as if charged,
Leaving a shiny full moon patch of skin on top.
I will never tell them
The way his beard seemed to stretch as he bent my direction,
Joining forces with the follicles on his chest,
The way his breath seemed to steal mine as he occupied my space.
I will never tell them
About the man whose name starts with M.
They will know I could not look him in the eyes to see their color.
They will not know how old he looked when he stretched my way,
Voice barely audible over the din
Of other patients screaming and thrashing in their restraints,
Yells of babies ****** out under drugged hazes,
The wild fantasies of diseased minds.
They will not know.
I will never tell them
How his muscles flexed when he stood,
Shouting at another patient,
The fight,
His eyes seeking mine as if for approval.
They will know I did not look.
I will never tell them how he took my hand,
Mumbling into my ear about how soft was my skin,
Arms draped over my wheelchair, uninvited
As I huddled under blankets.
I will never tell them
How my best friend watched,
My teddy bear given to me at birth.
Although not human,
I regret my inability to shield her eyes from this abomination of a man.
She will know that I tried to tell him no.
She will know that staff walked by,
Blind to my waving hands,
Unable to hear the silent whoosh of air passing through my damaged vocal chords
As I begged for their assistance.
I will never tell them
The way he rubbed my back or traced my arm
Before settling his hands too high on my thigh to be polite.
I cannot say more here.
I will never tell them
About the ice in my stomach,
Flooding through my body,
Already numb to my circumstance,
Afraid that he would merely lift my withered body from my chair
And do what he intended on the floor.
No faith had I that staff were the slightest bit of help.
The interest of other patients in my voiceless body
Was a welcome distraction to the psychiatrist
Doling out necessary medication to those more dangerous than I.
I will never tell them
What he did to me in the common area,
Stuffed bear the only one present of mind enough to bear witness.
Therapist has a word for his actions,
Not one I had ever intended to apply to my story,
Something reserved for the unfortunate lot of others,
Assault.
I will never tell them
His name like jagged teeth
Or the way his hands wandered without consent.
For in their minds I am nothing without corroboration,
And HIPPA law will prevent that.
After all, was I not merely a mental patient anyway?

I've got the January blues,
The Monday heaviness,
A kind of Tuesday Sadness.
I've got the Wednesday empties,
The Thursday lonelies,
And a Friday full of Madness.
Saturdays are cold and grey
While Sundays seem to slip away,
And the week recycles into blandness.

Sometimes life gives you lemons.
Sometimes life gives you your one and only
Partnered ****** with your
******.
And sometimes,
Sometimes,
I don't know what to do with that,
Especially when I want so badly
To show my new lover
What she does to me.

The first lesson they teach us in EMT class
Is to never lose our compassion,
Never forget that every patient is
A human being with a story, a family, a life.
They tell us to keep our emotions in check
But to never lose our respect,
The trust in the competency and freedom of choice,
For we are the link of survival
On the worst day of their lives.
We were not there to know the reason that led
Up to the call,
But we are there to get them through the danger that followed.
Why then does the text book instruct us to abandon our respect,
Abandon the presumption of humanity
At the mere thought of the words 'developmental disability?'
Why do the words Autism and Down Syndrome suddenly
Make it okay to condescend and patronize as if to a child,
To infantilize an adult whose intelligence we are not qualified to assume?
Why is it my duty to respect a neurotypical patient
And my job to abandon it for the developmentally disabled?
I wonder if they would encourage my peers to treat me the same?
After all, who cares that I am top of the class and squad leader to boot?
Who cares that I answer the most questions or scored highest on the test?
I am autistic. I am considered less than human.
No.
The textbook is wrong,
Primitive despite being updated in 2018.
Respect every patient means Respect ALL,
No exceptions,
No diagnostic caveats.
'First, do no harm.'
Treat with empathy and compassion.
It is their own inhumanity that prevents them
From recognizing the humanity inside us,
The developmentally challenged.
I live on planet Autism,
Population 1 in 59,
No less of a person than any other,
Perhaps more human really.
That humanity is the force behind my First Responder drive.
Do not deign to treat me as small child or foreign planet inhabitant.
Forget the basis in the archaic.
Respect and compassion for all cannot be checked at the door.
I am not less than.
My struggles have, if anything,
Forced me to become more.

My life depends on the contents of an orange bottle.
Without it,
I am on a neurochemical rollercoaster,
Lap bar refusing to pull down.
As the apex of the loop nears,
I must hold on lest I fall and crack my head on the depression below.

I don't think I'll ever have words
For how much I miss you this time of year,
For how painful it is to have lost you,
Or how grateful I am to have known you.
I am always searching in the darkness
For a sentiment that carries enough weight
To say how sorry I am you did not think your absence would be missed.
If anything, I miss you a little more every day.

I am so lost
In a world that demands I always know
What path my feet pound.
I am seeing ghosts in the mirror,
Memories that follow me
Like I am some sort of light leader.
My face no longer looks the same.
It's shadowed by this sadness,
And I am so tired of feeling like the undead,
Wishing the "un" had never existed in the first place.
I am so lost in a dream I cannot wake up from,
Floating through the air in a twisted mesh of unreality.
I am so lost.
I am so lost.

Dear Me,
You have always been enamored of language and vocabulary,
But your words are better suited for shaking the earth at a slam
Then writing your own obituary.
Is it not true that you have been unimpressed with every suicide note you’ve ever written?
What compels you to believe you’d do it better this time?
Dear Me,
We’ve courted suicidality like an ill-fitting suitor for enough years to recognize
The red flags by now.
Isn’t it time we stopped accepting pale apologies for the bruises it has left on our psyche?
“I am sorry” means little when it’s written in your own blood.
“It’ll never happen again” is a futile phrase when uttered more than once.
You used to believe that abuse was the price of being loved,
And should we not retire that sentiment?
Dear Me,
They told me to make peace with the fact that I may always want to die,
But you always wanted sugar as a child,
And what did that give you but a bellyache?
It’s not required to indulge your every whim.
Contrary to your own belief,
The thoughts will not **** you.
The last ten years of your life are proof that you can deny this demand.
Think of it like a work order,
A request that you repair yourself.
The goal is not that you never teeter on the edge.
It’s that you know in the end,
It isn’t a viable option.
Dear Me,
I used to think that “nice girls” never wanted to **** themselves,
But I’ve met a lot of “nice girls” who’ve sought a way out.
This desire is not a commentary on your value as a person.
You can be kind and broken and worthy at the same time.
Being happy is not a contingency of being whole.
Dear Me,
You’ve borrowed time the same way some borrow clothes,
Trying on different ages to see what fits,
Wondering what 60 is going to look like on you
When you haven’t grown into your 20s yet.
Your jeans from when you were 15 no longer hang in your closet,
And that proves you can take anything to the thrift shop when you outgrow it.
Dear Me,
I know you’re tired of these seemingly endless circles,
But you were told that mental illness is like a spiral staircase.
You still spin around even as you climb.
You are not the same person as the last time you wanted to die.
This moment is proof that you have changed despite feeling stuck in the same spot.
Dear Me,
It isn’t your job to befriend every lonely being in this world.
The Reaper will be fine if you tell him to make his own acquaintances.
You do not owe him your time and affection.
It isn’t your job to answer his calls.
Let it go to voicemail.
Dear Me,
I am not angry that we’re here again.
This is a love letter to the part of you that wants to die.
It is understandable to wish for an end to this pain.
You are still mine when you’re hurting.
I love you for all the times you’ve wanted to call it quits
And still showed up for practice the next day.
I pray that one day that kind of strength is unnecessary,
But never let it be said that you weren’t strong when it counted.
Dear Me,
We are in this together,
And I am never letting you go.

Do you ever just feel like you’re dying,
Like a million suns from unknown galaxies
Are crashing into you,
Stealing the space and air from your lungs,
Colliding with your heart,
Until what’s left of your soul detaches from your body?

Do you ever just feel like even starlight
Cannot keep the hope awake in your chest
And you yearn for the precipice that is the night sky
To swallow your whole?

Do you ever just think to yourself
That only monsters live inside you
And you are doomed to forever repeat
Your mistakes on time lapse
With despair in your bones?

Do you ever feel like there is no soul alive
Who is want for what you have to offer,
That the madness within is your only gift
But no one dares to receive?

I do.

It’s a light touch
Because I didn’t sleep.
I’m like a fairy on my feet,
Buzzing as I run these halls.
Try and keep up as I speak.
And they always told me
What goes up, it must come down,
But I just note the world
Endlessly goes round and round,
And please don’t call me
Back from this ledge, from the edge, this epiphany.
Mania is like all the world shone a light inside of me.
It’s too bright.
I try to close my eyes but it’s too bright.
Someone say the party’s over.
Send the voices home.
I don’t like the way they sound.
I’ll be better
6 to 21 days from now.

He says, "When she's manic like this, I can't keep up with her!"
He is lost,
Lost in the endless sea of my energy,
In the tsunamis of syllables
And the way the sun touches my skin, flowing through me.
I am a force to be reckoned with,
Daughter of the sky,
Made from dust of the stars.
They beckon to me with their brilliance
And the gleam of secrets they will not share.
I want to know where the edges of their shine go,
Want them to swallow me into their vastness.
I am a thunderstorm,
The gale force winds that shake the very earth he walks on.
My synapses connect at light speeds,
Weaving the strands of the universe.
I am a power,
Muse of the way the leaves quake and change color,
Poet to Mother Nature.
Of course he cannot keep up.
It is hard to run in flip flops!

I want so badly to be me enough
That it doesn't matter how crazy I am.

I was frozen to the bed
When he reached inside me
With his hands and his staff
And stole something from me.
Yes, I was bleeding,
But he did not draw his knife.
It was fear that kept me immobilized.
His act, perpetretrated while I was mentally tied,
Has taken my ability to feel safe in my own body.
It has ruined dark corners and altered my mornings,
Left me feeling vulnerable and torn shreds through my psyche.
The **** of a partner ruined all intimacy.
His crime was not one of sheer physical brutality,
But an act of Mental Violence
That has forever altered me.

Stop asking for medical advice on Facebook,
Your superglue stitches and peroxide mismanagement
Will cost you more than a doctor's visit.
Stop asking for medical advice on Facebook
If you want to keep your limb.
I've found more competence on the "interweb."
Stop asking for medical advice on Facebook.
An oxygen embolism and cellulitis will
Have you putting out more than the Urgent Care.
Please, stop asking for medical advice on Facebook!
-Sincerely,
The EMT student who is constantly preventing disaster
For people with minor injuries who think 50's era first aid advice
Is a suitable alternative.

My heart has broken every day
Since the moment you went away,
And though there are tears I long to cry,
My eyes have stayed unyieldingly dry.

The ache has faded and left the truth.
Gone are the days I counted as youth.
And though I thought I was grown,
No loss like this had I known.

I didn’t suspect you’d take your leave
Or that you’d be the one to teach me grief
So that I would know as hours passed
That those we love don’t ever last.

Oh, how far you and I have come
Since we counted up the sum
Of suffering shared and what it meant
To be unbroken, only bent.

How I miss you in my dreams
And in the silent painful screams.
I chase your footprints up those stairs,
No longer running; you’re not there.

I think of all the times I went
To your aid; my ear I lent
And drew you into strengthening hug.
The flow of tears with thumbs I plugged,

Whispered softly in your ear,
No need to cry for I am here.
I hope you felt my tender love.
If not, you know now up above.

And though I wish you’d made a different choice,
I still respect your timeless voice
And remember how you spoke my name.
I hope you know I felt the same.

I am so tired
Of swinging from the vines
Of mismatched emotions
Until I,
Not unlike Tarzan,
Collide with the tree trunk
And remember why
I was not given wings in the first place.

Do not conflate mortality and morality.
You can die a sinner,
Or you can die a saint,
But we all die just the same.

Depression is the swamp monster,
The murk and mud in the water.
It makes it difficult to see the bottom
Or know how deep it goes.

My existence is like a million tiny stars,
All bright burst followed by infinite blackness.
It is supernovas then the space vacuum.
It would be  loud
If anyone could hear it.

I love her the way the stars love the sun.
She is the brilliant light in my infinite universe,
Encouraging me to shine brighter myself.
Sometimes the space vacuum is cold or dark,
But we are lighting it up,
Together.

I am being suffocated by pain
That demands to be felt
But refuses to acknowledge its origin or cause.
How do I tame a beast
Whose name I do not know?
This season always brings with it emotional turmoil,
The joys of daylight's manipulation of bipolar disorder,
But this creature that weighs down my chest
Has not uttered its name.
Like all demons,
It must be named to be exorcised,
And it will not be cowed by my speaking in tongues.
Back ye foul beast
From whence you came.
By hook or crook
I will learn your name.

It is only right
That you should venture out
To pursue the higher mountain,
But how I will miss you
In climbing my own.

I long for the day when
I will be able to sleep
Without the memories silhouetted
Like silken slinking specters  
Across my barren walls.

Night time is how you know it's under your skin
When it slips in insidiously
Like a nightmare or memory
In the weird in between hours
When your hope is fast asleep
But your mind wide awake.

I was not designed to be an object,
And yet a man I once loved
Tried to claim me as such,
Like my body was his
And nothing more than a carbon mass
Whose blood did not run red in my veins.
I am more than the nickname on his tongue
And the doll for *** he made me,
Not a toy to be ripped apart
Into plastic pieces,
Until all I owned was my name.
My body and mind were not free real estate
For him to occupy rent free.
I am not a parking lot for the dumpster fire
Of his problems.
I exist in this world to own myself above all else.
This girl is not an object.
I did not deserve to have my body taken from me.

Depression does not have object permanence,
Or it would know
That happiness is merely
Hiding.

"You can join our group," he says,
"But only if you look everyone in the eyes."
I freeze.
Surely he is aware by now that the words
Autism Spectrum Disorder
In my chart were not placed there for fun?
Surely he is aware by now that finger twitching, body rocking,
     gaze avoiding
Are not for my frivolous pleasure?
Surely he is aware by now the absurdity of what he asks?
I am autistic.
Burning irritation of the eyes and panic aside,
Staring creepily into another human's eyeballs
Would render group a waste of time, no possibility to listen.
He knows this.
It is his prejudice that keeps him rooted to the spot.
I can feel the weight of his expectations boring into my forehead.
Explaining what it is to ask this of me,
I remind him that drawing this line would be excluding me because
Of my autism.
I tell him he would be losing a valuable participant,
A deep thinker, a creator, an avid listener.
I tell him he would be discriminating,
That I am protected by law.
Oh, no.
He budges not,
For he does not dislike autistic humans
So long as they act like they are Neurotypical,
So long as I pretend to be
Someone I am not.

Night falls like a heavy blanket
As the smell of rain wafts off the pavement,
Wheels of my father’s truck carrying us homeward.
The mountains stand like shadowed specters,
Black against a cloud covered sky,
Moon too shy to peak out from behind
The curtains of leftover moisture.
I hum a choked-up rendition of
Stairway to Heaven that plays across the radio waves.
Tonight, we are driving home from celebrating my grandmother’s
90th birthday.
My soul aches with the joy of sharing this occasion with her
And the sadness of watching as age catches her in life’s race.
I count my blessings that I have been gifted this moment,
For one never knows how many lie around the corner.
She is the most amazing person I’ve had the opportunity to meet.
If I could be granted the rest of my life be spent in her company,
It would still be too short.
Love reminds me that sometimes the best things in life
Are the ones that hurt the most to lose,
Yet I would not trade a moment’s loving her
For an ounce less pain.
It is worth it to love her so completely
For as long as time will let me.

I am queen of internet research,
Of "questions to ask on the first date"
And "when is it appropriate to 'make it official?'"
"How long should I wait to say 'I love you?'"  
I am queen of second guessing what my heart is telling me
Because I never learned the rules everyone else seems to know.
I never learned that there was a time frame
For missing the way you smell as if I am missing a star of the universe
Or the way your eyes are alight with excitement
At the mere mention of our winged and feathery brethren.
I never learned that there was a 'too soon'
To losing the mask I have reserved for so many
Or how it would feel like breathing not to wear it around you.
You asked me what I thought love meant.
I told you,
"Love is when you care about someone so much
You want them to be happy and healthy and full
Even if it doesn't serve you.
Even if it doesn't include you."
There is no beginning or expiration date
On wanting you to be happy and healthy and full.
There is no appropriate time to say
"Fasten your seatbelt!"
"Please drive safe!"
"Make sure you eat!"
"I hope you get some rest."
"Please be careful!"
"I really like you in one piece!"
"You are a good human with nothing to be ashamed of!"
To me, there is no appropriate time to say "I love you."
I've been saying it in more words,
In the way we talk about 'attack chickens' at 2am
Or bringing you a stuffed moose to prevent you petting a live one.
It is playing in snow in pajamas because I love how you glow
With childlike wonder.
It is dancing in the aisles of Target
And how much I enjoy simply buying laundry detergent with you.
My "I love you" is three words
And a million tiny ways I've been saying it otherwise
Because I had always been told that now was 'too soon.'
It isn't.
I am just in time to love you!

On the hard days,
The sad days,
The I miss you days,
Please come snuggle days,
On the days when emotions are more mountain and less mole hill,
More swing and less steady,
On the days when you gave your best and still felt short,
I am here,
Rooting for you!
You are always enough
Exactly as you are!

In a world full of deadlines and assignments,
I often wonder if I am getting credit for my life.
Did I pass the exam because I didn't want to die today?
Am I succeeding for inhabiting a level state of consciousness?
Will I be penalized for the fatigue or the anxious habits,
The inevitable compulsions?
Do they see below my skin where the turmoil lays?
Are my bones enough to hold me up under the weight
Of my perfectionism and pressure for success?
Am I too slow or different in a world that demands I exist in a system?
Am I enough in the course of Planet Earth?
Is who I am what they want,
And does it matter?
Is there extra credit for taking a shower and complying with medication?
Professor, did I achieve an A?