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Olivia Muenz is an MFA candidate in creative writing at Louisiana State University. She received her BA from NYU and is currently the nonfiction editor for New Delta Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Salt Hill Journal, The Boiler, Pidgeonholes, Heavy Feather Review, and more. Find her on online @oliviamuenz.

1 poem

by Olivia Muenz

from diary of an illness

day 47

 

I was looking for a get well gift to give myself I saw an ad on the internet offering a bouquet of the moon I was delighted I had found the perfect gift to give myself expecting of course to see some hot moonbeams tied with ribbon but when I clicked on the ad it was just some crummy flowers

 

day 12

 

I ate the can of beans in my pantry that I had been saving for a special occasion like when I felt hungry at 11pm but right now there’s no time for saving or for special occasions I have to mean business

 

day 24

 

I had been very concerned about meeting my deadline for the big project but now I’m not sure what a project really is or what bigness is or what a deadline is I can look them up in the dictionary but it won’t do us any good none of it will stick and anyway all of us are just making things up as we go along so instead today I will make my bed and that will be my new project

 

day 3

 

I think I am sick but I can’t tell for sure it has to do with the nature of thinking and thinking itself both of which I am not very good at all of the time and especially right now the problem is my body is colluding with itself to live in ambiguity it wants to go unseen like that will save us from the grimm reaper or a cold or my coldness towards all of it but here we are clear as day sick sick sick I think

 

day 7

 

I don’t think I am ill today in any fantastical kind of sense just the ordinary sense in which we are all sick and also in my ordinary sense in which I am all sickness but give me two hours and I may change my mind

 

day 31

 

today I am responsible for eating an orange and a banana and going to the bathroom and eating broth the to do list just keeps stacking up I may need to hire an assistant

 

day 16

 

my bed is a white hole and if I was any good at this I would be like alice in wonderland but I’m not I’m alive in unwonderland that’s how bad I am at this the sheets could be an entire landscape and my breath a big ocean and in one hour I could fall down a big hole and emerge all big and also all small and I could see people and they’d see me back and we’d have a wonderful time but that is not what I’m doing today today I am sitting here waiting to die

 

day 32

 

I have hired my cat as my assistant because she is within my budget but so far she hasn’t been performing as needed I am still waiting for her to bring me my medicine and open my banana she is acting like she is on one big break but I’ll give her a break we are all sick anyway

 

day 21

 

I would like to report that I have been duped but I can’t because I don’t know who to report to or what I’ve been duped by but to me that feels beside the point I am demanding some accountability here from something because I would not have signed up for any of this are you writing this down

 

day 19

 

I have ventured to the grocery store for supplies the world is very fluorescent and incompatible with growing things naturally but I am buying these poisonous bananas because they’re the only chance I’ve got

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