By the end of page eleven I had become so convinced that I'd contracted dysentery that I almost did not finish The Essay. I'm pretty sure it's just the second nastiest drug withdrawal of my life -- and just because I forgot to take those hateful pills a few nights in a row! -- but I am awfully ill, and it took all my willpower to keep from dropping everything and scouring the internet for potential diseases to explain it all. Dysentery fits. I mean, so does lamictal withdrawal, but I'm not feeling particularly logical. I just wrote the worst essay of my life, so bad that it made me cry to send it out. I can't forgive myself for that, and I can't be logical right now.
I'm officially not getting out of bed tomorrow. Unless I am still as sick as I am now. If that happens I am going to the doctor, no matter what.
Anyway, here is Sylvia's Fever 103. Because I have one too, and nothing will convince me that this is not the most perfect way to describe that curious feverish mind-glow, which is like lightbulbs and incandescence and feathers, yes, feathers -- oh, but she catches it better:
My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.Does not my heat astound you. And my light.
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.
