Who's Kidding Who? by Christine Stromberg - HTML preview

Laid Low

I used to run round on a big wooden ball

when I was much younger and fit

but now I can barely stay standing at all.

I've enough trouble trying to sit!

I stagger and stumble all over the place

and my hands do whatever they please.

My words come out slowly, forced out of my face,

as if they're determined to tease.

I lie on my bed while the universe tilts;

a beached whale in t-shirt and skirt.

What just walked across me, a man wearing stilts?

No, only the cat, but it hurt.

So what's brought about this unfortunate state?

What happened to make me this way?

Did a witch cast a spell? Was it something I ate?

No, 'twas something I did yesterday.

I went to the doctor, he gave me some pills,

he said they could help me, the creep.

I took just the one and it gave me the chills,

made me nauseous and sent me to sleep.

For more than a day now I've slept on and off;

it's been twenty eight hours so far.

I haven't the energy even to cough

and I've rarely felt quite so bizarre.

Never again will I take his advice!

I'll stick with the stuff that I know.

The herbs that I take may not work in a trice

but they've never yet laid me so low.

I think I should add that this state of affairs

made me stagger for over a week.

But now I've recovered - just one of life's scares -

and my future's no longer so bleak.

© 2004

As an update it’s worth mentioning here that I had aural hallucinations that started the day after I took that pill and that lasted for almost a year. Not good.