Erin Schick

Erin Schick Poems

The Best Poem Of Erin Schick

Prettier Ending

I came out to my parents as sick
the same way I came out as queer

I didn't.

instead,
I give them a few plot elements
and let them write me into their own novel
one with a stronger protagonist
and a prettier ending

The cardiologist is
a doctor I am seeing
the way my first girlfriend was
a nice woman I met at school
it's amazing, how we can not talk
about my body for hours

It is so much simpler for them, this way
It is a nicer story

They write me as their lazy daughter
forever collapsing into doorframes but
not sick
not broken

Pride is easier to swallow than explain
Illness is easier to hide than display
I use my wheelchair in public
and let people believe I cannot walk,
pretend it is always like this
I do not challenge their expectations,
but become what they want me to be

Pretend not to feel the neighbors' eyes
as I fold the chair and carry it upstairs.
Pretend not to notice
all of their stares, at the normal girl
who moved in and got crippled

That sad thing, watching spring
come from a bed of unwashed sheets.
She must think herself a damsel,
what dragons she has dreamt
up in the dark

My mother asks how I am feeling
and I say
fine
I say
it's a new problem
I say
no use in worrying
I say
I have a new friend

I am playing a character written
by the closet builders. I know
I should be ashamed, but my mother,
she tells such wonderful stories
she has written me as a daughter who makes her proud
a daughter she can share with the world

I listen as she tells her friends
How, in every rendition I grow thicker armor
and fight larger battles

And that daughter is the smartest girl I know
she must be so strong
to carry all of this alone
the doctors, the tests, the stolen youth

She is a woman I will never be
a braver hero than I deserve.
she always wins
she always wins
it's a better story that way

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