Put a Bandaid on It

Diagnosed during cardio kick semester.
Thrice weekly high kicks and lunges,
crying, burning vagina-wound.

My options limited:
tell the professor
tell my advisor
tell the doctor

I portion absences like war rations,
panic when I have no more,
beg my advisor for an out.

I’m bleeding these days.

His hands are tied,
he says, without a doctor’s note
or disability waiver.

I call the OBGYN.
The doctor won’t talk to me,
but the nurse will,
saying
“Can you shave the area?
Then put a band-aid on it.”

Photo Credit: Ali Leila Images Flickr via Compfight cc








Ani Keaten

Ani Keaten is a poet grown in the desert mountains of Idaho. She writes about daily life and her experience with chronic illness. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys creating art with oil pastels, looking at rare rocks, and seeking out high places from which to take pictures.

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Ani Keaten is a poet grown in the desert mountains of Idaho. She writes about daily life and her experience with chronic illness. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys creating art with oil pastels, looking at rare rocks, and seeking out high places from which to take pictures.

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