Booster Shot Blues

I poke myself in my left eye once more

When your entire body is shuddering

Removing makeup is a painful chore

I let out a shaky breath, wondering

How will I make it? When I’m tottering

At the sink, and it’s cold and I’m in pain

If this sounds dramatic, let me explain

***

They say I’m logical and rational

With feet firmly on the ground, no nonsense

A problem solver, steady, practical

I am most days, I suppose, no pretense

And I’ve got resilience too, gritty, intense

Any wavering imperceptible

And to setbacks I’m insusceptible

***

It’s true, that’s me, unless I’m mildly sick

Fever robs me of my identity

Or rather removes all artifice quick

Common sense and reason abandon me

When faced with an intimate enemy

And when perseverance takes its leave too

Who’s left? A weak, spineless baby, that’s who

***

So when the chills and aches launch their attack

My nighttime routine becomes a war zone

Contact pried from my eye, I stumble back

It falls and despair as I’ve never known

Surges, it’s lost, I’m weak and all alone

Then silicon catches fluorescent light

Glimmer of hope, it gives new will to fight

***

It’s too much, the energy to bend down

It takes everything in me, I’m empty

Trembling, groaning, but it’s done, I may drown

In rising tidal waves of self pity

But I hold tight to this small victory

A great battle looms, twelve steps to my room

I can’t make it! To try will be my doom

***

What choice is there? Crumpling onto the floor

Into a heap on tile? No. It’s too cold.

And so I move, shuffling toward the first door,

Each slow step like those of someone so old

A long epic journey that won’t be told

Arrived at last, collapse and burrow deep

Fiercest fighting always wages in sleep

***

Desperate pleas for sweet relief escape

And despite my agonizing, I know

Woes to which I almost capitulate

Are no true suffering, and even so

A thought profound, to win one must let go

Unconscious defeat of disease in rest

While mind retreats, body is put to test.