With apologies to Walt Whitman.
I sneeze myself, I excuse myself.
For every sniffle belonging to me as good belongs to you. Sorry!
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass, clawing my eyes as I reach for Zyrtec-D and “fast-acting” eyedrops.
I, now thirty-seven years old and in perfect health, maintain a group text with my allergist, internist, and energy coach.
The atmosphere is not a perfume but an assassin, a revenge epic.
Each golden particle, a tiny airborne Judas.
I contain multitudes, but mostly mucus.
Mucus I wipe away with a CVS receipt longer than my sleeve.
My airways are inflamed, and my friends are tired of hearing about it.
We suffer, but not in silence. For when we sneeze, meetings stop, foundations shake.
Not I, not anyone else can travel the road for you. But before you do, obsessively check the pollen count and pack your inhaler.
Don’t give me the splendid, silent sun. Give me an air-purified living room in Scottsdale with the AC on blast.
And as for me, I know nothing else but miracles. Miracles and second-generation oral antihistamines.
For in my soul, there is hope.
For in my nose, there is Flonase.
In Flonase I trust.