Dearest Heart! Darling Cherub! Star of Stars! My Equatorial Sun!

You have betrayed me.

I dare not ask *why* you’ve failed me, oh sweet dark angel! For years I have loved you completely with a blazing passion worthy of Byron or Browning or Beethoven! I never questioned it, never took you for granted! I was never anything but grateful for all the promises you made, all the benefits you dangled before me! Though I could never look into your eyes, nor feel your fingers in my hair, I knew you were with me! I felt you every time I filled out a new patient sheet or instructed a doctor to bill my insurance!

Oh! Medicaid! Dearest Medicaid! I was but a girl when you came into my life, a buxom, rosy cheeked maid of eighteen! I was not a crackwhore, nor was I even too terribly impoverished and I had not ONE screaming brat! I could not begin to fathom why I’d been one of the lucky ones enrolled in your private health plan, but I would have followed you to the ends of the earth! Thrown myself onto jagged rocks! Wide eyed and trusting, clutching the meager designated copay in my sweaty palms! Childishly believing *you* would be responsible for *all or most* of my health care needs!

Oh, Medicaid! My sweet Medicaid! I have been faithful, far more faithful than I intended to be! I’ve been patient with your weaknesses, but you’re cruel to me, oh immortal beloved! I suffer intolerably, my pain constant and unbearable! I died every day for six long months, the pain absorbing me! Tormenting me! All because YOU could not find a doctor to do my root canal!

Oh! The mountains I’ve climbed for you, whilst being overlooked and provided with second rate health care! You’ve mercilessly forced me to walk around with a chip in my front tooth for years! YOU say it’s “cosmetic”! My gallbladder is full of stones, big ones! You’ve got me walking on straight razors, it could rupture at any moment!

You get a twisted thrill from this, knowing I could die for you! You wouldn’t even cry! You’d laugh and taunt my ghost! Roll around in my ashes!

You *say* you’re “Keeping America Healthy”, but what about me? *ME*? I truly cannot leave you! I keep coming back for more, even though I just *know* you’re off with all those low income, barefoot pregnant bitches behind my back! I cannot help it!

You’ve scorned me for the last time.

Today I had to *pay* for my own prescriptions. I had no choice! I could not allow you to starve me, throw me deep down into your pit of madness and despair! Those depths frightened my very soul and I could not wait for you! You may do a crap job of “Keeping America Healthy”, but *VISA* sure is everywhere you want to be!

I charged the bitch.

I paid once. I’ll not do it again.

I am giving you one last chance. Here. Now. I’ve had it with your jealousies, your agonies! You’ve boldly challenged my devotion to you and have carelessly forgotten me! In forgetting me, you have forgotten America.

Thus you have failed an entire nation.

Reimburse me, oh fiery muse! My passionless devil! Your heart is blackened to the core and you can beat me, shove me, knock me to the ground! I’ll only come back for more! But mess with my *wallet*, it’s all over. I’ll love you no longer! I’ll detest you, you wretch! You truly perverse, truly stupid, damnable excuse for a Cinderella.

You must reimburse me and never deny me coverage again! I shall cover you with a hundred kisses and lavish you with all the affection in all the universe! But you must not kiss me back for it shall set my blood on fire . . . and I don’t think my insurance covers spontaneous combustion!

Pardon the delirium of a love drunk poet! But adieu, my love! Adieu!

Your Brianne