20/08/26 - SICKNESS NEVER HEALTH

Today, I'm sick. A mild feverish state, maybe a vague concept of a cough. My throat is sore, my skin clammy. On days like this, I lay down on my single bed, sweating it out and wondering what it would be like if this was a completely different world, and one of the many things I desire was a reality.

I close my eyes and open them to my own apartment. It's not big, but it's enough. I'm in a big shirt and underwear, tossing and turning on the double bed, burning with infection. Here though, there is no stone in the pit of my stomach. Because I know I hear the front door lock click. It's you, in a magnanimous state where your kindness outweighs your shame. I had given you my spare key. You walk into my bedroom, avoid all the books and records and papers and medicine strewn on the floor to get to me. You hold the back of your palm to my sweaty forehead while I shiver, brush away the red hair, a tangled mess all around me, and say, "Oh, poor thing."

I feel the warm dryness of your hand. Close my eyes and smile despite it all. I think you make me soup or get something hot, thick and delicious delivered to my flat. You make sure I eat it, sitting feebly at the dining table as you light a candle or two, put a record on. After I shower, you blow dry my long, long hair, brush a fine toothed comb through it to get rid of the knots. I'm wearing a shirt of yours. Maybe it says 'American Football' or 'Title Fight' on it. It takes everything out of me, so I stumble into my bed, where you already are, and I put my head on your chest, and you slip an ibuprofen into my lips slowly with two fingers. I wash it down with a glass of water you keep on my nightstand. Maybe—and this is the most pathetic part— you mumble soft praises into my hair, with a firm hand on the top of my head.

The TV is playing American Dad or Solar Opposites or Archer, and the rise and fall of your chest lulls me to sleep. You smell like you, like sweat and soap and cologne. You pet my head, maybe give it a small kiss. I swing a leg over your thigh, rest my hand on your sternum, drenched in a drowsy daze. In this situation, war is over. There's no more unbearable chase, no more horrible circumstances. There's just you and me. I admit to you softly, half-awake, "Before you, no body took care of me."

And you give me one of your stupid fucking grins, the one where you're amazed at my honesty, the one you only seem to show me, and you say, "Well, it's different now, isn't it? I'm here."

Today, it's a hot day. Too hot to be sentimental. And yet, I persist. I always persist.