The No Sugar Added® Poetry contest is off to a fantasticstart this year! Our very first week saw 46 beautiful, inspiring and evocative submissions. This is truly a gifted community :)
Our winners this week
1st place: "Job Posting", by Leanne
2nd place: "The Elites...", by Alexis Nicole
3rd place: "She is Twenty-Six" by Devon
Honorable mention also goes to Heidi98 for "The DiabetiThon" and Andy for "467"
Congratulations to our winners, and to all our beautiful poets.
Read our winning poems below!!
Job Posting
by Leanne
Looking for self-motivated, committed individual to take over while I go on sabbatical
Applicants must be available 24 hours a day, every day, no holidays. Duties are
schedule office visits
schedule prescription delivery, supplies can never run out
renew prescriptions, prescriptions can never expire
calculate insulin doses
adjust insulin doses
count nutritional data with every morsel of food that enters body
adjust insulin doses
drink juice
adjust insulin doses
take insulin
drink juice
administer shots on stomach, arm, thigh, or butt
eat
exercise but only when glucose is stable and in normal range
take insulin
drink juice
pay co-pays
save money to pay co-pays
take shot
call doctor at 3am when glucose is high
drink water to flush out toxins
stick fingers
draw blood
test urine
take insulin
count nutritional data
drink juice
exercise
eat
never let pump out of sight, not even during sex
hide pump under clothes, in bra, in pockets, on thigh
insert needles into skin
connect tubing
ignore low blood sugar during exam even though hands shaking, sweat dripping down face, vision foggy
ignore high blood sugar while out with friends even though stomach reeling, muscles drained of energy
go to bathroom to hide
turn alarm on pump to vibrate during exam
wake up to alarm on pump during night
ignore complaining classmate about alarm during class
don’t forget to test
don’t forget to test
adjust insulin
drink juice
take shot
don’t die
The Elites...
By Alexis Nicole
Its 3am.
The world is sleeping. Except for the chosen ones.
I call them The Elites.
Zip. Pop. Click. Beep. Poke. Beep.
Count down begins. Feels like an eternity.
5...Thoughts of what will happen next circle my mind. A sleeping child pulls away, to cuddle his teddy bear. A snoring spouse can be heard through the thin walls.
4...A restless brother is tossing and turning, I try not to wake him. I glance at his fingers, already so blistered, and wonder what another 20 years will bring to them.
3....I wonder if the other Elites will sleep tonight. Will I? Will I need to coax a sugary substance between his pursed lips?
2......Or fumble in the dark, to push buttons, to administer some life juice?
1.....Beeeeeep! Deep breath in.
117.
Exhale.
I kiss his sweet face, whispering I love him. Thinking to myself that he will never know how much.
I finally lay my head down on the pillow, readying myself to do it again.
6am.
Zip..Pop...
She is Twenty-Six
By: Devon Haemer
She is twenty-six -
Invincible.
A vibrant woman, so self-assured.
Until she goes low -
That dreaded moment when
Her confidence plunges,
A waterfall of panicky tears.
Suddenly she is two again -
Begging juice and peanut butter cracker
Off complete strangers at the beach.
How humiliating!
These moments are the sludgy bogs
That slurp down her hopes.
She slumps, anchored fast to the beach towel,
While her foggy brain gets pummeled by vicious waves of doubt.
“Can I endure these lows and highs,
These needles and numbers forever?!”
“I can’t possibly travel abroad like this!”
“How will I ever handle motherhood as a diabetic?!”
Then the juice and crackers manage to saturate
Her body’s yearning cells.
And her thoughts allow her space to breathe.
She has energy, enough energy to unbury her hopes.
And she is twenty-six, again –
Nearly invincible
A vibrant woman, self-assured.
The DiabetiThon
By Heidi98
The road stretches straight ahead
Miles and miles, off into the darkness
and yet it seems so oddly familiar
like an endless loop
for I am no hero,& I have been here before
drop-by-drop,counting the gallons lost
hole-by-hole, playing Connect-the-Dots with the scars
Diabetes: 5000 Me:0
seeking to lessen the damage
in this Diabeti-Marathon
I run to live
and my prize is being alive
for in this race,there is more taking then giving
kidneys
heart
eyesight
every other complication under the sun
Am I doing this right?
no one can tell
Although confirming my failures is easily done
and yet I think at least I'm doing well
and good for many more rounds around the track
but the monotony is stifling
and I am tired to my core
day in,day out
days to weeks to months to years to decades
it never ends
Can a human being live this way?
I want to believe in a cure
but the passage of time
jades the most enthusiastic of people
so I settle for survival
and I wait for the sun to come up
the diet coke to kick in
And then I see that I am not alone
You are not alone
We are not alone.
We run together.
467
by Andy Altman (Spring 2003, age 13)
467, the number that changed my life
On that cold, dark Tuesday.
When 467 showed up,
I felt my heart do a flip.
So I tried again.
467 again.
Then I knew that not only my heart,
But my life had flipped too.
I hugged my dad
Silently crying,
Along with my grandparents,
Mom, and sisters too.
Soon my uncle was there
So I tried again.
And the glucometer said
My blood sugar was 455.
Still way too much.
So I sat down,
And watched a basketball game.
While my mom moped around
With my grandma.
And my dad told me
How my life would change
But it would be okay.
Soon I was at the hospital
With lots of sick people
In a big room
With a gory sitcom on the tv
It was then I was officially told
I had diabetes.
And I knew,
How 467 changed my life.