Revision #1: To be beheld in its endless tangle of fabric, one is not flattered. Expanding with a single motion and sometimes semi-translucent. Ill-fitted. Achromatic most of the time… or with azure dots dashing across it. Or light green. But it’s not the hue that preoccupies you. This garment…this garb…signals a malfunction… within you. A diagnosis embedded in between its fibers. A reconstruction of your life. It scratches at your skin. Ownership is not really yours. Or hers. Or his. When you leave, you will have to give it back and some other unfortunate entity will soon adorn it. Some who have worn it have walked out the doors of the infirmary. And some have not. For some, this is the last garment.

Revision #2: Draping below your knees, it hangs despairingly. Rectangular and semi-transparent. Prosopagnosia. Hemi spatial neglect. Aphantasia. The diagnosis could present itself in any of these forms. Where does the fibers that stitch together this gown come from? Gossypium arboretum, G. herbaceum, G. hirsutum? These terms rush into your head faster than you realize. When did you store them? And why are you recalling them now? This is your defense mechanism. The reciting. Your head is an endless encyclopedia and yet, this garment is your final verdict.

Writer’s Notes: I found this assignment to be very difficult because I usually tend to lean more towards using simple language when writing. During the first revision, it was hard for me to get rid of the everyday words. I started off by trying to use synonyms to give me some inspiration. Unfortunately, I think my first revision comes off as a weird mixture of “wordy,” but still includes everyday words from my first free-write. During the second revision, I wanted to highlight the fear of diagnosis while wearing a hospital gown. I imagined a character that knew a lot of random, unique terms sitting nervously in a hospital room awaiting her diagnosis. So, I looked up really specific diagnoses and similarly, looked up different cotton hybrid varieties to describe the fabric of the hospital gown. Overall, this assignment definitely challenged me to begin to think about “exactness” and it’s something that I want to continue to improve on.