Dear John Letter to a Beta Cell

Once you were I was we were
one. You
maybe instead
were
one of many
but we still were
one.
One donut, whole no hole.

Now. Now.
You’ve gone and
apopted. T-cell
bitch moved in
brought friends and we
We. We.

No man something
something island.
I am not
a man
You. You left
my island
afloat a sea
toxic by your
own breath

I mow
the lawn on my own
I pay my own tab
I buy my own drinks
I make the bed
one side only.
(something something
little red hen)

Martin Luther King
had a dream little
white girl
this is my dream:
I hold it
against you
But I
am no mountain
Come back
to me
the sand
this small island

And leave me no more
you endocrine whore.

Karmel Allison

Karmel was born in Southern California, diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of nine, and educated at UC Berkeley. Karmel now lives in San Diego with her husband, where she is loving the sunshine, working in computational biology at the University of California, San Diego, and learning to use the active voice when talking about her diabetes.