1
" I cannot go to school today" Said little Peggy Ann McKay." I have the measles and the mumps,A gash, a rash and purple bumps.My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.I'm going blind in my right eye.My tonsils are as big as rocks,I've counted sixteen chicken pox.And there's one more - that's seventeen,And don't you think my face looks green?My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,It might be the instamatic flu.I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,I'm sure that my left leg is broke.My hip hurts when I move my chin,My belly button's caving in.My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,My 'pendix pains each time it rains.My toes are cold, my toes are numb,I have a sliver in my thumb.My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,I hardly whisper when I speak.My tongue is filling up my mouth,I think my hair is falling out.My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,My temperature is one-o-eight.My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,There's a hole inside my ear.I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...What? What's that? What's that you say?You say today is .............. Saturday?G'bye, I'm going out to play! "
2
" B-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.'
'Of course you do,' I said, 'everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out.'
'But Mr J-Jimson, there must be artists.'
'Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home,' I said, 'and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth of the risk. "
― Joyce Cary , The Horse's Mouth
7
" The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed. "
― Billy Collins
