Vertigo
Nila Narain
The morning sent me to tears, I could barely move, let alone open
my palms to grab something, call someone. Still, light entered
through the curtain slats and I knew there were things
I had to do. I rose slow, eager
for the feeling to end. (It didn’t.) It stayed
through a waddle to the bus stop, thickened in transit,
and pulled my vision like a child stretching, reinventing Play-Doh.
All the colors swirled together, trees stark and unrealistic
against an all-too-bright sky. My brain told me if I focused too long
on any one point, it was over—I’d be down for good. That, or
I would be riding the vomit train straight to public embarrassment and
potentially a hospital. You know that feeling when you’re going down
a steep hill on a bike and for a second you glimpse over your shoulder just to
make sure you remember where you came from? My brain screamed at me
Turn around! What the hell are you doing!?
When almost the whole day went by and I was still barreling down a never-ending
slope, I decided to go to the hospital. Hours later, I told the doctor the world and the room
and everything has been spinning / spiraling / flipping / whirling for two days now
and I wanna know when I’m gonna feel normal again. He made me lie down,
twisted my head back and forth, back and forth. Is it better or worse now? All of this
is the worst, I couldn’t tell the difference. He slipped out of the room, returned with
a print-out titled Benign Positional Vertigo. “Do the exercises in this packet, call
if it gets worse.” I’ve always pushed myself into tailspins trying to do everything, taking
on too much. Nobody tells you how to stop. My friends brought me Gatorade
and asked how I was doing. I couldn’t bring myself to be honest.
I’d like to pretend I’m good at difficult situations, crazy life events, but
I’m not. I clam up, I start spinning, and I don’t know how to stop.
Nila Narain (he/they) is a mad crip queer poet. They are an alum of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where they studied computer science and creative writing. In their spare time, Nila enjoys crafting and napping with their cat. Find them on Instagram @nilarain00.