When the Sun Turned Black

Today, it was in the mid-80s, sunny, and humid. My therapist was only a five-minute drive from my house. Not wanting to waste money on Uber, I decided to walk there. It was about a 40-minute walk.

When I was 10 minutes away from the office, I started to feel dizzy. Having had seizures in the heat a long time ago, I still get triggered when I feel myself losing control of my body.

Thankfully, I made it to the office without an episode. To understand and overcome my fear, I wrote this poem about seizures in the sun.

I remember the first day I forgot who I was,
didn’t know where I woke up,
and couldn’t recall the faces that hovered above.
For several minutes, I couldn’t see the sun.

When I came to, everything was hazy.
A friend who was there said she thought maybe
I had died while going for a run.
That was the first seizure that I remember; it wasn’t fun.

My camp counselor thought it was caused by dehydration.
After all, it was a hot and humid summer vacation.
So I took it easy, stayed in the shade, and drank water.
Instead of succumbing to fear, I tried to be stronger.

After two more seizures, it became clear that something was wrong.
I felt like I was drunkenly dancing to a distorted song —
a song on repeat that…