The clinic

In and out people come from the doctors office

We all wait sitting on green plastic chairs

And the nurses greet us taking our orders for tea and coffee

There is a ticket machine, where you grab a ticket and get your bloods taken

Every time another number is called the little screen beeps

I shuffled a little, as the chair is very sticky

I could feel tears rising in my eyes

The lady nears me turns to me and says

"honestly feels like I am sticking to this seat right now"

I laughed, she was not wrong

Another comes back accompanied by her mum, she was talking about how this new treatment, might be able to mean she can go back to work

A lady sits down with the most beautiful pink coat, with dyed purple hair, she gave me a reassuring smile

Then walked off to get her blood taken

I watched all of us attempt to pour water from the jug

With our shaky sore hands

And thought of the irony of having a jug of water we all couldnt pour from because of our disease

I took a sip from the half filled cup

And start choking as I sometimes do

Unable to swallow even water

I could feel the tears rising again

The lady next to me tells me how she wants to win the lottery, and some time on the beach

We laugh, then go quiet

The reality dawning on us, because thats not how our disease works in fact the sun and the beach will make it worse

A person with a long coat and the most beautiful scarf I had ever seen, came in for bloods and left, I watched as she repostioned the scarf to cover the rash spreading along her neck

A mother and daughter come in, her daughter transalting for her, I watched as the mum repostioned her wig

On the wall there was a poster on lupus and mental health, and another poster on family planning and lupus

Outside there is a garden, with daffodils growing

Evidently the lady next to me gets called away

She waves at me and says good luck

And then I get called away too

The doctor leads me down the corridor

I wonder what all the other patients backstory were

And how they came to be in the same clinic as me