April PAD Challenge + NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 30

 

Image by Dmitry Abramov from Pixabay

This will be our last daily prompt for a while, Poetry People. I decided to end on a fun one, writing a silly limerick about a smack-talking Cyclops and a cheating golem made from bread running a race.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2024-april-pad-challenge-day-30

This final Twofer Tuesday prompt of the challenge asks poets to write a beginning poem and/or an end poem.

My poem has both a beginning and an end.

It doesn't end well, but if you enjoy twisted dark humor, you'll like it.

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-thirty-10/

This year's final NaPoWriMo post invites participants to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.

Hence, the Cyclops and the bread golem.

I believe this is the first time anyone has written specifically about a bread golem. In fairness, the infamous gingerbread man is also a golem made from foodstuffs. 

I was up until close to three in the morning preparing my submission email for Dragon Soul Press. It's flown to its destination and was swiftly acknowledged. 

This is the link you require if you're interested in submitting to their forthcoming horror drabble anthology (submission deadline 31 May). 

https://dragonsoulpress.com/drabblecalls/

Don't direct further questions to me 'cause I can't answer 'em! I'm just the messenger.

I hope one day soon I come to a place of peace with this damn CPAP machine. I fare better when I keep it on, but I don't like having things on my face. I usually take the mask off while I'm asleep. 

I really do wish society, including the medical community, would stop shaming people for not being perfect specimens of exceptional health. I feel like a failure for having diabetes. I feel like a failure for needing a CPAP machine. I felt like a failure when I had to have an emergency C-section. I feel like a failure anytime one of my old fillings needs replacing. Telling people they're failures if they have health issues doesn't lead to improved outcomes, and this ineffective method of "encouragement" needs to stop. 

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 22: A Palindrome for my Pancreas

Copyright Darksouls1

An artistic depiction of my pancreas

Betrayal in honesty

No loyalty offered

Deception not really

Not dishonesty

Without grace

Though there was duplicity

There wasn't mercy

You weren't exactly lying

You have not forgiveness

Forgiveness not have you

Lying exactly weren't you

Mercy wasn't there

Duplicity was there though

Grace without

Dishonesty not

Really not deception

Offered no loyalty

Honesty in betrayal

~Cie~

Note:

Pardon my brutal honesty, but my endocrine system is a fucking trash fire. My thyroid decided to immolate itself when I was sixteen. My ovaries became cystic, shitty little bastards. My periods were from hell. I developed endometriosis. I don't know when I started developing fibroids, but I have a uterus full of the damn things, and it's coming out at the end of the year. 

At least with the thyroid, I just have to take pills, although sometimes the dose has to be adjusted down because they can jack up my blood pressure and pulse rate. My thyroid may still have some of its own function, but it's completely abnormal.

Then there's my pancreas.

My pancreas waited until I was 49 to decide to fuck me over.

At first, I took pills, but then they stopped working sufficiently. Besides, I don't like having to carry around a spare pair of pants, and the less said about that, the better.

Then I had to start injecting long-acting insulin (Levemir).

Now I inject the long-acting insulin at noon and midnight and the rapid-acting insulin before meals.

"It's soooo much fun having a zombie pancreas," declared the queen of sarcasm.

By the way, diabetes cannot be cured, so don't tell me about how if I just drink a gallon of vinegar at every full moon while pouring ice cubes down my pants and sprinkling pepper in my hair I will be cured of diabetes.

In rare cases, type 2 diabetes goes into remission. This is not the same thing as being cured. Like cancer, a person with diabetes in remission is always more vulnerable to a recurrence of the disease than a person who has never had diabetes.

Further, I would like to see the word "diabetes" stricken from the medical lexicon and replaced with "hypopancreatism," which is a much more accurate term.

Diabetes is an ancient Greek term which translates loosely to "evil pissing" because of the increased urination that is part and parcel of the hell that is this stupid disease. Besides, it's a loaded term. People love to say it with a sneer as if those who end up with it "brought it on themselves" by "eating too much sugar.'

The cause of hypopancreatism is having a genetic trigger for the disease. A person who does not have the genetic trigger will never get the disease no matter how much sugar they consume.

People living with food insecurity are more vulnerable to activating the genetic trigger for the disease than people who have a reliable supply of nutritious food. However, the disease can strike anyone with the genetic trigger, regardless of their physique or social standing. Age increases the likelihood of developing type 2 hypopancreatism.

So, I am not calling the disease by its ancient Greek name anymore, although I do think that "evil pissing" is a pretty cool term. I would like to see the stigma attached to the condition eradicated.

And now, I need to go inject my wonderful basal insulin.

People who don't have the condition think that having to poke oneself with needles is the worst part of the disease. It really isn't. Often I don't even feel the needle. If I hit a tender spot, I experience minor pain. No big whoop. 

What I hate the most is the way the disease curtails my independence.

And that is why I leave this with a big FUCK YOU to my zombie pancreas and my crap endocrine system as a whole. I sometimes wonder what my life could have been like if I hadn't been easily fatigued and depressed for most of it and accused of being lazy every step of the way.