When we talk about illness
We dump our words into buckets
And swing them around
Carelessly
Never noticing them trickle out
My point is that illness is not a metaphor.
And yet how will we fill our pints
Without overflowing?
How can we cross the border
To the land of the sick
Taking up residence in the kingdom of the ill
unprejudiced by the lurid metaphors
with which it has been landscaped?
Can we say “cancer”
Without meaning “death?”
Can we say “disease”
Without conjuring evil magic?
Must we isolate ourselves
For the sake of stigma?
How do we view lack of health healthily?
The cure is to watch the line
Where metaphor turns misconception
Misconstruction, miscalculation
Dialogue turned delusion
The cure is compassion
Consideration, care
Curating a concept you can control
Curbing the conventions of concealment
The beauty of language
Is it liberates us
From leaky buckets
From chains to change
We can choose how we speak
We become full
Without overindulging.