Death walked into the hospital wearing selvedge Japanese denim and a straw hat. They were lean and tall. It was summertime. Those Death met were left with an impression of handsomeness, but no one could remember details of Death's face. Was Death Italian? Was Death Korean? Eritrean? Egyptian? Syrian? Mexican? Danish? Some people confused Death with dying. Death was a tour guide, not the bus. Death was coming to see a girl.

Some might think that she was too old to be called a girl, but she was of that generation where girlhood lasted decades as long as one followed in the footsteps of Chloë Sevigny and the Olsen twins. She was in her Jesus age and getting an infusion for a rare rheumatic disease that had manifested during her Saturn return. She was sick but not dying.

After four years of learning the ebb and flow of chronic sickness, she had become a professional patient. She thought of her sickness as another career. She dressed up for her hospital visits, flirted with her nurses, and reassured them when they couldn't find a vein. She was good at her job but hadn't always been so. It had taken years to get a diagnosis.

Over time, she learned how to inspire a perfect balance of empathy and pity. She became the tragedienne the healthcare system needed her to be. She learned that in order to get proper care people needed to feel a little sorry for her—but not too sorry. Too sorry and they stopped seeing her as human.

"Hey."

"Hi."

The girl gazed into Death's shimmering face. The individual elements of Death's face wouldn't sit still in the same way a waterfall is never still yet in and of itself is a singular thing. Her first instinct was to call Death a force of nature, but the wording was too strong. The cascade of Death's face lulled her into tranquillity. She breathed deeper than she had in months. Death was the smell of dew-covered grass on a morning when breathing tastes like eating an ice cube. Why is Death here?

A month ago, she had published a poem about swallowing Death like milk. Was Death hoping for a blowjob? Did Death even have genitalia? Maybe milk hadn't been a metaphor and she would suckle at Death's breast like someone with a baby fetish. Normally, she was shy and reserved, but the ennui of the hospital made her down for anything. She imagined Death's tongue tasting like a honeysuckle. She knew Death could never make her come. Her medications had drained her of all desire. Yet, because she was scared of becoming a disability stereotype, she still had sex as often as she could. Any pleasure she derived was purely intellectual—a satisfaction of curiosity. Her lack of desire was a secret that she only shared with other sick girls: those who knew the occasional grossness of being a diseased body; the timelessness; the falling away of the self that was. What emerges from our shed skin? Why is Death here? Death handed the girl a coconut water.

"I thought you might like this while you're doing your infusion."

"Thanks."

"You sure have been writing a lot about me these past few months."

The girl blushed. She thought about making a joke about instagram personas. "I guess it's just weird that we never talk about you."

She had always imagined that dying would be like melting into the universe. So when her grandfather was in hospice she brought Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's "Hello, the Roses" to read aloud as a psalm.

"No one had ever told me about the end of cancer," the girl explained. "In the end, Pappy was like a corn husk doll. I was scared to touch his hand—scared to kiss his forehead. I was a coward."

"You're all cowards."

The girl nodded. "Why are you here?"

Death smiled. "I heard that you were bored."

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