Side Effects

I wish you had come with a warning label,
stamped on your forehead,
caps locked, bold letters—
CAUTION: MAY CAUSE COLLAPSE
 
I wish you had attached pages of side effects
to the bottom of your first text message.

Because this time
the only language
heartbreak translates into
is physical pain.
 
It isn’t poetry,
it isn’t sad songs you play on repeat,
it is weight.

It is a chest that becomes too heavy for a ribcage to carry,
it is lungs that refuse to do their job,
it is my whole body
orchestrating a rebellion against me.
 
As if my brain had secretly transported messages
through my veins and told them that the only person
who makes my life worth living had left for good,
so what’s the point of keeping on going?
 
And grief,
just like an uninvited guest,
grief moves in without asking.
Makes itself at home in my stomach,
my lungs,
my muscles.
 
It hijacks my mornings,
sits in the passenger seat while I cry on the way to work,
holds my hair as I puke in the office bathroom.
 
It is exhaustion. Nausea. Suffocation.
 
When you get sick,
doctors always say
“Call if the symptoms persist”
 
But do they mean it?
Would they answer
if I told them it’s been months, 
and I still can’t breathe?

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