My Stomach, The Swamp

How ignorant eating consumed me.

You wake up before the alarm.Again.Not from rest. From revolt.

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Your gut’s already bubbling — swampy, sour, like water trapped too long in a rusted pipe.You know that smell. You know that weight. It’s your insides staging a quiet mutiny.

The room’s dark but buzzing. Your brain, that sticky fusebox, crackles with half-thoughts and full regrets. The fan’s still on. The air’s stale. You’ve sweat through another night. You call it “summer.” You know it’s not.

There’s a moment — between the stretch and the stagger — where you lie still, pretending you’ve got time. Pretending it’s just fatigue. Pretending it’s not your body trying to warn you again. Your chest tight. Your knees slow. Your gut bloated like a lie.

You sit up. Everything creaks. Not like wood. Like something rotting. You drag yourself to the bathroom, not for hygiene — for surveillance. What colour today? What texture? How much longer before something snaps?

The mirror doesn’t blink. You do. Because the face staring back has edges you don’t recognise. Puffy. Pale. Like you’ve been left out in the rain and forgot to come in.

The toothpaste burns. The breath smells off. Like something’s dying in secret, too ashamed to stink.

You skip breakfast. Not on purpose. You just… forget to feel hungry. Coffee, maybe. Black as your thoughts.

The tea sits there still — Lingzhi, brown and bitter. Not salvation. Just a start. You stare at it like a dare. Tomorrow, maybe. Or never.

The phone buzzes. Adverts. A friend’s salad. A stranger doing yoga on a rock. You scroll past them all. Jealous, bored, ashamed.

The ache sets in properly by ten. The usual one — not sharp, not dramatic. Just… persistent. Like guilt. Like something you tried to ignore and now it’s part of you.

You laugh at the idea of a cleanse. You’d need an exorcism. You snort at meditation. You tried it once — lasted eight seconds before the panic set in. The silence was too loud. The breath, too shallow.

Doctors? No. They’ll just name the things you’re afraid to say out loud. You don’t need a diagnosis. You need a do-over.

But instead, you work. You sit. You eat. You scroll. You reply. You stay upright. You don’t feel.

And at night, when your gut churns and your heart thumps louder than it should, you tell yourself, “Not now.” You say, “Tomorrow.” You say, “I’m just tired.”

You think about opening it again tomorrow.Tomorrow’s how rot survives.

Because no one dies in the morning. They just decay in private. One skipped warning at a time.

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These stories aren’t rare. They’re just rarely told early enough.

Most decline begins in silence — a skipped check-up, a swollen ankle, a breath you dismiss.

Lingzhi supports the body before the damage is done.

Not a miracle. A habit. A choice — before small signs become chronic disease.

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📌  Lingzhi is a traditional food taken to support general well-being. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. For personalised advice, please consult a qualified healthcare practitioner.

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