02/04/2022
woke at 3:30 to the kid who crawled into my bed. she went right back to sleep, but i haven't been able to, which feels okay. i'm not prepared for the morning, but when are we ever? my body is fresh from the booster, still trembling. a little over a month ago i was lying in this bed while a nurse talked me through breathing problems on the phone. you could go to the ER, he said, in the dubious way of a late-night talk show host, if you can get down the stairs. but where would you rather be, sitting in the waiting room of an overcrowded Brooklyn hospital or at home in your bed?
so i took my medicine. i tried not to cough so hard. i tried harder not to picture the skin flakes that my lungs had made - there's a more scientific name, but it's even creepier - which were clogging up my breathing. if i was gentle, if i was steady, i'd be able to keep breathing.
