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diagnosis

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Text:

if you are
a doctor,
diagnose me please.

i want to be
an
a n
o m
a l y
i want to be
a ty///\\po in the program.

tell me my heart
sinks unusually like the
weighted dunes.
tell me my veins are
a strange merlot,
crawling under my skin,
like earthworms dashing back
to the shelter of soil.
tell me it all.

you’ve seen this before,
haven’t you?
some thing like me.
it is mere x-rays
that flash bony apparitions of death,
and you have prodded under
some other skin
and seen the same disease,
i’m sure.
haven’t you?

no.
i will not be.
i will not be the pathogen
tearing into my own
cells.
it cannot be that i hold
the knife that cuts my
s
l
i
t wounds.

i do not want your pills.
i do not want your
synthetic distractions,
your numbing poison.

i
am
the how.
i must be the how.
and you will be the why.
that is your role.

Comments & reviews · 5
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User avatar
Tikaya
Review
Tikaya wrote a review · Wed May 20, 2026 10:20 am

Another work that is out of order in the Green Room. Why is the sorting so awful qq

First of all, I like how you spread out the word “anomaly” all over the page, as if to physically show that the narrator is too unusual to be contained by normal paragraphing!

…A typo in the program. Usually triple slashes mean a commented line in a program (at least in some languages) while a double backspace could be a file sorting thing. Intriguing!
Comments in programs can also be used to understand the functions/the code better. Would be a cool callback to the title of the poem! “It is not working properly, we need a diagnosis” :3

Veering off from that image… I do like the comparisons in the next stanza!

X-Rays…. In the next one. Another tool for diagnosis, this time in a medical sense.

Love this sequence:

i will not be the pathogen
tearing into my own
cells.



The sequence of “slit” down, is it to form a clean cut, a clean line? Is this why it is arranged like that? O_O

Intriguing poem!

Thank you for the review!

User avatar
Raindeer
Comment

No critique here, but I love the play with language:
- the way "anomaly" is misspelled to represent the word anomaly itself
- the typo in typo
- the break in the word "some thing" -- at first my brain read it as "something", but the break into the two words really reroutes the meaning

I'm also getting this separation from the narrator of the poem from their own sense of self with a focus on robotic language (program, "i will not be...").

Very thoughtfully done!

User avatar
JustMeBeingMe
Comment

Wow amazzzzing love it can totally relate. I wsh there was a diagnosis, a treatment, for this y'know?

I love the way you wrote your poem, it's real it's raw and I can tell it came right from the bleeding heart. This is not just a mere poem about personal experiences but dives deeper into the underlying issues in the medical and mental health industry (personal interpretation?) the way you wrote it doesn't feel like I'm reading a poem, it feels like I'm inside the head of the speaker, that I'm that person with it's crumbling body and justifiable anger. The helplessness, rage, everything feels bleak.
You're very talented, keep creating.

User avatar
thatonenerdAri
Comment

Hi, your poem has such a unique writing style which I enjoyed although did find a bit confusing. Although the message became quite clear during the end and during the beginning. I also love this:

"i do not want your pills.

i do not want your

synthetic distractions,

your numbing poison."

As that really speaks to how this world is right now. It's like your forcing the truth to be told from superior people. As well as declaring who you are. There is also such a commanding voice written in the poetry. It's lovely although since I haven't ever encountered a poem written like this it was slightly confusing. However that's what makes it unique.



today we are possible.
— Lucille Clifton