I’m Allergic to Everything That’s Wonderful
I took half a sleeping pill at ten-thirty,
put on Curb Your Enthusiasm and was out by eleven.
Woke up at three,
took the other half at four.
I was up again at six.
I didn’t notice she wasn’t in bed.
Found her on the couch,
laughing in her bathrobe,
scrolling on TikTok.
She said she dreamed
of slicing all the flowers in the world
with wings of butterflies
to build a nest beneath a porch
to gently rest her brain.
She is on a mental health leave.
Her autoimmune disease is devouring her
with flare ups like a worm
working its way through soil,
boring down to the centre of the earth.
I put a pod in the Keurig.
She went back to bed.
The dog followed her.
I was alone.
Took a sip of my coffee—
maybe two—
then headed to the bathroom.
I had a good shit,
solved the New York Times Wordle
in four guesses.
The word was: pupil.
Then I brushed my teeth,
splashed water on my face,
and didn’t bother to look in the mirror.
I went to the bedroom to change.
Put on clean underwear.
Stood there, touched my belly,
grabbed the fat along my ribs
and asked her if I still had it.
She said I did.
I don’t.
I went downstairs,
fed the cat, the dog,
took my antidepressant
and an allergy pill.
I am allergic to the cat,
the dog,
flowers,
and everything that’s wonderful.
It was seven-thirty.
I knew what I had to do today,
and that made me want to run
to the empty seats in my brain
and sit down
and miss it all.
Instead I went back upstairs
and told her I was going to get to work.
She started to dance, singing,
“God, what have you done?
You’re a pink pony girl, and …”
I stood there for a second.
Then it was time to leave.
I’ve got to keep on dancing.
Over the Top Rope
I had big plans today.
But the sleeping pill I took last night
threw a hard right
that exploded
between my eyes,
and when I woke up
I felt infinitely worse
than when I manage to sleep
only a few hours,
which is most nights.
I was going to do so much today—
I really was.
Maybe type up a poem like that O’Hara—
half-telling tales in cafés
full of people I don’t like
while
I sip a glass of tap water
and stare out the window.
But I stayed in bed until noon
with the curtains closed
on a beautiful Saturday,
rewatching Hacksaw Jim Duggan
win the first ever Royal Rumble
at Copp’s Coliseum in Hamilton.
Then I went downstairs
to the kitchen and had
a bowl of bran cereal
at the table
and marched back to bed.
Took a few pills.
Lay back down.
I really was going to do so much today—
but instead
I watched old wrestling
and didn’t do any of it
politely.
Who needs big plans anyway.
I don’t.
When you’re feeling this lucky—
don’t bother.
In the Low Blue Hum
In the low,
blue hum of the night,
it's not all that bad—
even as I lie awake
at 3 a.m.
She’s still there,
snoring
on her back,
sweating
when I have to pull her out
of another recurring nightmare
where someone chases her
through the streets
and her feet won’t move,
breathing
with that indescribable panic,
arms stretched out.
I feel terrible
when she has one
and I see her trying
to get away.
She will tell me about the dream
in a calm voice in the morning
and thank me
for waking her out of it.
On most nights,
I can hear the old cat
still alive
walking around
somewhere in the house.
Sometimes I go looking for it.
Sometimes I find it
pissing in our shoes
at the front door.
I usually check on the dog
in her bed
and just watch her sleep.
In those hours,
I try to thread
through desperate vocabulary,
imagining quiet summer mornings
at Wahwashkesh Lake—
before the kids
in the other cottages
wake up yelling
and jumping off their docks.
But it never works.
I always end up
stuck on another
uninvited thought.
Eventually,
I give up,
dig around
in the drawer of
my bedside table
looking for more sleeping pills—
somewhere
next to an old sleeping mask,
eczema cream,
Apple headphones,
lemon cough drops,
pretzels.
I take one
and remind myself:
it’s all right
being up
every night—
lying awake,
listening to her snore
until I fall asleep
as the birds
sing the first notes
of the morning.
Ryan Di Francesco (he/him) is a neurodivergent Canadian writer, teacher, and editor based in Ontario. His journalistic work has appeared in The Toronto Star, and his poetry and fiction are published or forthcoming in over forty literary journals and anthologies, including Acta Victoriana, Pacific Review, Soliloquies Anthology, and Pinhole Poetry. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Shadow and Sax, an independent literary and arts press. His chapbooks include Mirage of Burning Things (Parlyaree Press), Skeleton Mine Disaster(Bottlecap Press), and The Paper Hound and Canadian Classic (Alien Buddha Press). His Jack Spicer–inspired collection Along Tongues Full of Time is forthcoming with Ethel Zine & Micro Press, and his full-length poetry collection Let the Dogs Have It is forthcoming with Parlyaree Press. He was shortlisted for the Rhonda Gail Williford Poetry Prize.