Being poor and sick in America
makes you intimately familiar with humiliation
and degradation
and frustration
and dehumanization.
You learn that your eyes, your ears,
your teeth, your heart, your lungs,
your hands, your feet, your knees,
your mind
are less valuable--
that somehow a simple question of
"Is that Medicaid?"
can make you feel less than a centimeter tall--
make you curl inside yourself in shame
like someone's focused a spotlight on your poverty
like you're some street urchin who accidentally fell through the roof
of the Golden Globes, and the clean shirt you're wearing
suddenly feels yellow'd with age,
and your naked face feels pocked and scarred
next to the Chanel and Givenchy,
except it's not style and fashion you're trying to compete for
but survival.
