a/n I recently had my first hospital stay that didn't involve the maternity ward and then,
two weeks of recuperation with not much else to do. It prompted some random thoughts

Sometimes when you're especially tired and you need a break from your routine,
You have no money but pretty good insurance,
You might think to yourself:
"I don't want a terrible illness—just something to keep me in the hospital for a couple of days."

You don't do anything to make it happen, of course.
It's just a random thought, like,
"I wonder how it would feel to fly".
But when you begin to think wistfully of sanitary confinement,
Remember the IV

Remember squeezing your fist desperately to bring a shy, bluish vein into prominence,
So you'll only have to be poked once,
But no nurse ever being satisfied with the offering in the crook of your arm,
So you end up with multiple pricks and bruises.

And the needle rests in one of those irresistible veins in your hand,
Where it will hurt longer than the site of the operation that you cosmically willed on yourself.
So when a hospital, again, feels like a poor man's substitute for a vacation,
Remember the IV, and shake off that lethargy