no thank you

My taste buds are hollow and my back weak, as I sit and rock from side to side, clutching my pillow as if it were a newborn. I am twenty feet or possibly less from the bathroom and as my entire abdomen rolls and speaks in foreign tongue, I dread the thought of having to move toward the porcelain G-D that I have befriended out of necessity.

I lay for a minute and shut my eyes. A ringing in my ears sings constantly over the snoring of Ashley who lays at my feet. I look at the medicine I have left to take for this evening and start taking pills, trying not to spill the water I wash them down with and sometimes I start to shiver from my head past my toes, my vibration leaving an echo of sorts in the room for which I try to slumber.

I wish for a few hours of sleep without thought but possibly a colorful dream, wondering how much longer my body can physically endure this hell.

I am rotting like a bag of apples from the core to the skin, only I cannot be thrown out for garbage pick up. I hear someone ask if I am going to have a bowl of ice cream and I cringe, darting for the bathroom to cough, heave and scrub the vomit off my person.

Politely I say 'no thank you' and shut off my over head light.