SUGGESTIBLE

by Sherry S.   

I’m so suggestible
that I catch a cold
over a cell phone if
whoever I’m chatting with
coughs, or worse yet,
describes symptoms,

so suggestible
that I break out in
a new scattershot of spots
when I see pictures
of another psoriatic’s skin
in an undoctored photo
or artist’s depiction, so

I wonder whether
attention-deficit disorder,
a Christian Science upbringing,
and dyslexia combined
to cause my condition –
that condition being
the way I convert a seen
or heard affliction
into its physical manifestation.

Many decades ago,
while my attention
was diverted by the usual
pitter-patter brain scatter,
a Sunday school teacher
tried her best to explain
‘mind over matter,’
but this dyslexic, psoriatic kid
mangled the message, so
for me it's not just skin
but mind that’s the matter.

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