Feeling Dizzy by David Loffman

Here's one of the poems I read at the poetry reading at the cornerHouse last Friday. I hope you like it.

Feeling Dizzy

At first, it’s a flutter in my stomach.
I feel lightheaded
and a little dizzy.
With a dull ache in my chest.
It stays a while.

Then dissolves into the jobs 
and usual distractions of the day.

Weeks later it comes again.
More insistent now.

This time it comes with an ache 
high up in my throat.
Everything feels a bit fizzy.
I want to cry.

I take an Aspirin.

I tilt my head and listen
in case it has something to say to me.

Silence.
I think about calling a doctor.

It comes and goes like this for a few weeks.
I live uneasily with it.
A little worried.

I realise there’s something strangely familiar about it.
From long ago.

When it comes I stop and tilt my head
and ask it, what are you? 
and where are you from?
But it never answers me.

Sometimes I let myself get distracted.

I think about calling a doctor again.

Then one day when I’m in the middle of it
I count off the symptoms again.
And suddenly it clicks 
I know exactly what this is.


It's happiness.