I’m ill. No one says this, although in the triad of unhealth it is what is truest. Subjectively, I am unwell. Objectively I show signs of an unknown disease (not COVID, not strep, not flu). With my pathetically stuffed-up head and bruise-colored complexion, surely I am recognizable as sick. In the shower, waiting for at least some of the congestion to lift, my brain was working a mile a minute on all of this and I was SO SURE it would be an interesting creative nonfiction thing. SPOILER: It was not. So now it’s an uninteresting Distorted Diablo.
Title: Throes
WC: 113
There Is a ragged pain
When breath goes in and out
The world comes roaring back
Brutal little minutes
Kinder than the silence
Or so they seem, just then
There are a million little pin pricks
Cells we must take on faith rising up
Crawling then marching then racing off
The flush and the chill and beads of sweat
The twitch and pulse of muscles beneath
Steel fingers pry rib from aching rib
Spider-veined eyelids flutter, restless
Dreams, kicking upward, breach the surface
Unbidden, unwelcome, unending
There is no rest at all
Exhaustion settles in
Unfurls its heavy limbs
The long night sees tears pool
And spill in scalding trails
Stillness skitters away
MTZQ Telecommuniculturates 