IBS

As I drop my book bag to the ground

I simultaneously shoulder the stares of my classmates.

Late again they whisper

In the bathroom again.

I wonder what she does in there- is she really sick?

A bolder girl looks me right in the eyes and asks

“What is it like?  IBS?”

I laugh hollowly.

.

I imagine it’s a lot like giving birth-

It’s as painful as hell-

But much less rewarding, because all you get is crap.

I imagine it’s a lot like being repeatedly stabbed-

Except you don’t die, so the misery drags on.

I imagine it’s a lot like having your guts ripped out

One agonizing inch at a time

Until your vision blurs and you can’t take it and you pray to G-d and Odin and Zeus and

WHOEVER you don’t care anymore someone has to hear you SOMETHING has to work

or else you might attempt to kill yourself just so you won’t have to feel this awful spiraling terror

it hurts it hurts it HURTS and you want to bang yourself into the wall just to disrupt it, even for a second

but you can’t move you’re bent over double your head is between your knees and

you can’t breath for the smell so you reel back but then it HURTS so you reel forward and

you can’t place that piercing animal keen will someone just shut that guy UP?! except it is you and

you beg and plead and suffer and just when it starts to fade, just when you think you’re free

it comes back with a vengeance even greater than before and you just CAN’T because it HURTS

Then the next day you are just tired.  So tired.

.

But I don’t tell her that.

I just smile weakly and say

“It’s nothing.  There’s nothing they can do.

You get used to it.”