Growing up I was always a kid heavily pressed down by asthma. I remember most of the sleepless nights, the wheezing of my chest giving me discomfort. My throat closing up, my body going limp with each effort; thoughts of dying finally getting imminent. I remember the shrieks, telling my folks that I wanted to get the HELL out of the house and go to the HOSPITAL. Seems like I had great energy reserved for shrieking since it is what I could do best without any form of deprivation.
My folks would put me up in the car and drive off in the middle of night so I could get on that ventilator. I remember one night when the attack was immense, we got up in the middle of the night and walked just to meet up with the ambulance my father had called. Those nights always refilled me with unpleasant familiarity. It was at night that I would get scared the most because I had a morbid assumption that I wouldn’t make it through. But when dawn slunk out, I would have some relief that I would beat this. 
You probably expect a happy ending to this dilemma and look forward to some confetti or flotilla of balloons in the air. I didn’t die though. Not yet at least but I did have more macabre conditions as time progressed. I remember being admitted at Matter Dei hospital for three weeks from a lung disease. I had gone for the holidays to one of my mom’s sisters at the time. I would like to acknowledge that this was a near death experience for me as I had spent the rest of the day sleeping, fatigued. She was a nurse, then she took my temperature that night and discovered that I was almost dying. She and some friend immediately carried me to the car and drove to the hospital where I later got admitted for a fortnight and additional 7 days. Visiting hours were usually prayer sessions from unfamiliar faces, offering reassurance that I would walk out of all this alright. I didn’t know what was happening back then.
I guess that pruned off some stress and eventually made me a champ! Again, I didn’t die. Maybe not yet. Years rolled away only for me to be exposed to another severe enigmatic sickness that the doctors could not detect in my body. Pains. Pins in my brains. Needles everywhere on part of my body but still I lived. And later made some shocking discoveries. That’s when I learnt that life is not all rosy and sunny. The negativity is there and sometimes it’s permanent. And you just end up being this leper that taints everything it touches. That’s why I allowed my ink to bleed these tears for me in this manner. Despite all ailment wars, I still didn’t die. Well, not yet but I still live with this malady to this day. It’s like a foetus growing inside a womb but what’s horrible about this one is, it doesn’t COME OUT! It’s there, waiting, scratching my organs, and laying low in the alleys like a cat.
Quite A Discernible Pair Of Eyes. My eyes are windows that refuse to pull away the curtains for the pain that lays up in bed all day with a fever. ...my eyes are clouds that refuse to burst up all the collecting and gathering avalanche. When people see these dark grey clouds, sagging with heaviness, the urgency of their panicking legs makes them duck through their hatches, fearing a tempest. What they don't know is, when I try to clean myself, I lose too much water my eyes become boundless wells, For when I let my waters free, I forget the gaps between my fingers when I try to push the falls back in; and just frown at the wet soils making cocktails with my rain. When the sun comes out of hiding for a toast, the same cowards step out to claim their manna with pitchforks and flambeaux. ~theUniversalPoet
Quite A Discernible Pair Of Eyes. My eyes are windows that refuse to pull away the curtains for the pain that lays up in bed all day with a fever. ...my eyes are clouds that refuse to burst up all the collecting and gathering avalanche. When people see these dark grey clouds, sagging with heaviness, the urgency of their panicking legs makes them duck through their hatches, fearing a tempest. What they don't know is, when I try to clean myself, I lose too much water my eyes become boundless wells, For when I let my waters free, I forget the gaps between my fingers when I try to push the falls back in; and just frown at the wet soils making cocktails with my rain. When the sun comes out of hiding for a toast, the same cowards step out to claim their manna with pitchforks and flambeaux. ~theUniversalPoet