The poem by Sarah B., “A Diagnosis,” is an interesting, well-executed piece of writing. Sarah intentionally describes the various symptoms she experiences to drastic extents. Uncomfortable sensations are portrayed, like “My bones/throb,” “My ears/sting,” and “My heels/burn.” After some slow, purposeful pacing, Sarah’s feelings clump together and come out in a conglomeration, such as in the lines, “My tongue’s unraveling and my eyes are cold/and my fingers are stuttering and my nose twinges.” The rhythm of the poem is like the speed of a roller coaster: it begins slow at first, then picks up speed after the first incline. At the poem’s conclusion, the pacing slows down, like the roller coaster decelerating at the end of the ride. Sarah finishes with a twist that transforms the meaning of the poem, “I think/I am/tired.”
   

 I love how each inclusion and exclusion of a certain element contributes to a target reaction from the reader. It reinforces the structure of this poem and its ingenuity. For example, the line breaks at the beginning and end of the poem serve to act like the calm before and after a storm. The start gives impressions of cumbersome, but tolerable side effects Sarah deals with. Then, all these anticipations are blown away as many more problems are flushed out in a tumultuous chaos. Sarah describes this part using one large run-on sentence, but interrupts it several times, and also leaves the reader hanging through unpredictable pacing. This adds to the contradictory and unstable tone of the poem, alternating between unceasing and abrupt, making the reader as flustered as Sarah. The final “and” is like an action scene freeze-framing and resuming in a much more relaxed manner. Then, the story is wrapped up with the notion that all of these descriptions were a dramatized description of fatigue. This is when I had a big “Oh!” moment and felt outsmarted in a funny way. Everything is done so deliberately and so well that it feels hard not to reread the piece to enjoy how I was bamboozled before.
     

The experience isn’t the only commendable aspect of the poem; the emphasis on the feelings of exhaustion through the title’s serious presentation, sheer number of discomforts, and startling tone is mind-boggling the more I realize how true this portrayal of enervation is. Sleep is incredibly important to humans and I know a majority of kids, including me, stay up late and struggle to wake up in the morning. Thus, it is easy to recall how each feeling Sarah illustrates is realistic, since our bodies are crying out to be able to rest. In a tired state, recognizing each individual pain becomes effortless and exaggerated as it becomes one of the only things our decreased awareness can pay attention to. The message, which is to take a nap so we can take care of ourselves, is an added bonus on top of all these amazing qualities of “A Diagnosis.”