An old poem I wrote, and why I hate being sick

[Ravenlunasong aka GuerillaStar]

Well, first and foremost....blech! Turns out it was a mild case of food poisoning, the sickness I mentioned yesterday. I'd called NHS Direct, the basic countrywide after-hours doctor service, on Saturday after coming down with some pretty bad sickness, among other things, and they said it sounded like food poisoning, got an appointment this morning and that was confirmed by the doc. Note to self, when the chicken in the teryaki noodles doesn't 'taste right'...trust your gut (no pun intended). So today I thought, 'right, today I'm staying in bed to get some rest, get myself put right again'. HA! Dad decided today of all days was the day he wanted to start work on redecorating my room. Basically, no way in hell was I allowed to stay in bed, despite barely being able to grip anything because I had virtually no strength, and continually walking into things because my balance was totally screwy.

So yeah, not happy one bit. So this evening I told dad 'Tomorrow, I'm staying in bed, and if you don't like it, tough.' Whoooooohoo! was he not happy about that! He just about threw a total hissy fit and went off at me talking about how I'm so selfish because I'm holding him up in decorating my room and I obviously couldn't care less about what he wants. As most people here know, I rarely lose my temper beyond the occasional mild outburst (although I know of one person here who's been on the receiving end of one of my more vocal eruptions :P ) but that just pissed me off sooooo much, because I haven't spent a single day in bed in the last 2 years, despite feeling so weak some days that I was literally dragging myself around, and now here I have FOOD POISONING (I mean, how much more of a genuine reason for bedrest do you need!?!) and he yells at me for being selfish for putting his plans a whole day behind schedule. In the end I just told him if he wanted to work in my room he'd be on his own and he'd have to work around me because no way in hell was I going to make myself worse by forcing myself to be working around paint and allsorts when my stomach's already on tenterhooks just so he can do exactly what he wants when he wants with no input from me whatsoever. He wasn't happy but I think ever since our last major fight, he's realised that I'm becoming a bit more stubborn in standing up for myself lately, coz he let it go by just saying 'well, if you're going to stay in bed tomorrow, that's the only day, it's back to work on Wednesday'. Not much, but better than nothing :) Hehe, I think the EGP's having a bad influence on me! (well, as far as dad's concerned anyway :P personally, I like it)

The other day, mum and I were cleaning in the living room and we found a few old scraps of paper, most of them were rubbish but I found one that was a poem I wrote goodness-knows-when (I normally date all my poems but this one doesn't have any date on it so I can only guess it was from about 5 years ago, since I think that's roughly when I got the notepad it's written on. I vaguely remember writing it but tbh, I completely forgot about it. So, I thought since it's basically new to me, I might as well post it here, since I'm quite proud of it :) So here you go!

The Ball

Once, while walking on a shore
I found a strange, bright ball
I thought I'd heard its name before
But now could not recall

I walked along just as before
With the treasure in my hand
And soon I met a wise old man
From a strange and distant land

I asked him 'Please wise man
Answer this for me:
Why each time I gaze into this ball
A different scene I see

One time a chest of buried gold
The next a castle grand
Another time a happy couple
Walking hand in hand'

He said, 'It is a shame
That a child should ask such things
Within the orb is a tiny voice,
For you alone it sings

Within the ball the wishes
Of your heart are what you see
This tiny little trinket is
What men once called a dream.'

Copyright Me 2008 (I hate having to do that but one of my poems got swiped the other day so I'm gonna have to start doing so now :( )

Punctuation's atrocious, and I'm not sure how it stacks up against good poetry, but I'm pretty happy that it got my message across :)