The ER doctor pokes my back there
& my nerves shiver
up/down my right side,
my jaw half-numb,
a dull ache above my right temple.
Couldn’t be a concussion.
I would know, they say—
but I don’t trust my mind, still unclouding,
emerging from eight months of hypomania.
They never use a nerve scan,
the reason I’m spending $250 here
instead of urgent care.
I shouldn’t have told them about
the meds
my diagnosis.
But half my body is numb
& I’d passed out and fell on my side—
the side of my brain
that controls the side of my body
that I now can’t feel.
“You might have bruised a nerve,”
but only muscle they treat.
The next day I have to ask
for muscle relaxers,
forcing myself to sleep
when I cannot feel my own body.
Sleeping on the feeling side is not an option—
my scoliosis makes that so.
A months-old nerve compression
exacerbated by acute stress?
Hunched over playing a new video game,
avoiding my own thoughts?
The old mattress at my parents’
where I stayed instead of outpatient
after switching medications, passing out
on the hotel bathroom floor,
waking up screaming in shaky breaths?
They could have at least used the nerve scan.
