My Kidneys Are Damaged
by mikel k

"Diabetes is weird," she said,
setting me up, "we don t detect it
sometimes until five years after
its onset and by the time we do
there is often already damage."

"You do know that your kidneys
are damaged, don t you?"
she then asked me.

"No," I said. " That is news to me."

It is funny, if that is the word,
I thought to myself, that with all the
drinking that I did in the first 34
years of my life that I emerged into a
sobriety that will celebrate 15 years
in February with a clean liver.

And it is funny, if that is the word,
that my lungs are clear, after smoking
from the age of 18 to age 36, and yet
there is this insidious, hereditarialy-induced
thing stalking me, that wants to steal
my toes, take my feet, destroy my kidneys
and rob me of my eyesight, not to mention, it
is seriously fucking with my love of sweets:
brownies, cookies home-made and storebought,
sodas, milkshakes, cakes, etc.

Dr. Kevorkian is getting out in June
and he has promised, as part of his parole,
to assist noone to die with dignity, which
sucks at several levels I'm thinking as I sit
here tonight writing this as my toes tingle.