Wrapped in the white of sterile halls, I craft my tales of pain,
inventing maladies, a masquerade to make me feel sane.
Every symptom a brushstroke in a portrait of distress,
craving glances of concern, my truth I must confess.
I don’t chase death, but relevance, in this cold, unseeing crowd,
in the echo of my heartbeat, I paint my fears aloud.
Sanctuary in the sickness, where sympathy flows free,
in this theater of the ailing,
I finally matter, I’m finally seen.
Fabricating fevers, wounds that won’t heal,
wounds that aren’t there,
a desperate plea for presence, drawn from the thin air.
Doctors whisper, curtains rustle, I bask in the care bestowed,
each false alarm, a desperate charm, in my lonely code.
Not for riches, nor escape, but a place in your gaze,
each diagnosis a story, setting my empty days ablaze.
I weave these threads of fantasy, as real as they are faint,
in the hope that my fabrications paint the saint I ain’t.
So I’ll spin another symptom, another chapter of my feint,
in the comfort of the sterile, I find the saint I ain’t.
Not a call for help, but a call to be known,
in the web of treatment, I sew my seeds of being alone.