Thyroid: Revision

[71degrees]

Thyroid

Hormonal imbalance wrecks me
Like an internal hurricane
Devastating metabolism.
 
I take a telepathic head count
Before I go for labs;
Free T4 and TSH.
 
My energy floats on waves
Bringing stress to the simplest days,
And the medication hits my liver
Like twenty alcoholics
 
Everyone is accounted for;
All the primaries in place
Until someone dies or moves
To another state.
 
I drop radioactive iodine
On the doctor’s call,
And wonder who’ll take the head count
When I’m gone.
 
Four weeks later;
I’m the rendering of fatigue;
Monitoring the size of my thyroid.
 
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Revision 1 (working with word choices)

Thyroid

 
 
Hormonal imbalance wrecks me
Like an internal hurricane
Devastating metabolism.
 
I take a telepathic head count
Before I go to diagnostics for blood work
Every six weeks.
 
My energy floats on waves
Bringing stress to the mellowest existence
And the medication hits my liver
Like twenty alcoholics.
 
Everyone is accounted for;
All the primaries, established
Until someone dies or moves
To another state.
 
I drop radioactive iodine
On the doctor’s call,
And wonder who’ll take the head count
When I’m gone.
 
Four weeks later;
I’m the rendering of fatigue;
Monitoring the size of my thyroid.
 

I'm still not sure what I want to do with S1...

My wife had her thyroid taken out (cancer) a number of years ago. When she doesn't take her one-a-day or forgets or runs out for a day (or God forbid, two days) she is a crazy woman. Even today, after tinkering with dosage a dozen times, her hands can be ICE and her feet can be toast or vice versa...sometimes within minutes.

I like the poem. You do it justice and things shouldn't have to make sense. Keep the first line and scrap lines two and three. You need something fresh, out-of-sync to make someone understand right from the get/go. Hurricane is a cliche. "Devastating metabolism" is telling me. SHOW me. If you have to make an extension of stanza 1, go for it. Don't hold back. If it is a hurricane, blow me away from the start.

Don't give up on this.