pillow

today my head aches, in the back, dull and rhythmic
when my head hurts like this i get paranoid
brain tumor, for sure

i remember waking up in the middle of the night as a child and waking my mother up
i whispered, "mom, i think i have a brain tumor, my head hurts so bad"
my mom would respond in a half-hearted mmmmhmmmm before telling me to go back to bed.
i would regretfully walk back to my room, whispering her regret that she would find the next morning when she woke to me dead from this brain tumor of mine.

this last december i spent in zambia and was convinced i had malaria. i couldn't turn my neck, my head ached, my eye sockets felt worn out, my appetite was small. i tested negative for malaria and was shocked at the news, i was certain. but when i returned to my home that evening i had a thought, maybe it was the pillow i was using? and so i removed my pillow from my bed and woke the next morning feeling great as ever.

i truly am a fragile girl. does anyone else's head hurt from a pillow? princess and the pea, that's me. i think i get bruises from certain kinds of pillows. how is that possible? somehow, it is. i need to invest in a pretty feather pillow, i sleep on those best of all. you know the kind that you sink into as though there is nothing to them, but when you decide to have a pillow fight it hits the hardest? that kind, yep, that's the one. then i'll take it everywhere with me, across the world, to distant lands, to avoid my re-occurring brain tumor syndrome. caused by pillows.