The Cold

Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Of tasting the lilac hues preceding death

Gently on my tongue,

An unbidden friend stopping by to say hello

A touch too long for comfort because I am in funeral attire

And there is a body waiting to be seen.

.

The world has slowed to a stop between

Rasping coughs and the haze of oxygen-starved thoughts.

I am hungry for how it used to be

But those days have sped off into sunsets I missed

And sunrises I will never see.

I've slipped and fallen through the cracks

Into the flames and heat of the underworld.

.

I can taste the dissociative air crackling with electric terror

As sour capsules are shoved down my throat.

I wake covered in the film of another bad night.

Another spread of darkness wasted because of foolish hungers

And even worse desires.

The dreams have come to suffocate me,

Drown me in phlegm and an ocean of beautiful days I'll never see.

.

I cannot be healed by the rhythm of normality

Nor can I be wrenched free of the grip this illness has

Because it tastes good.

It tastes familiar and burnt like the end of a cigarette

Or the strand of hair singed on the stove.

Of me but not me, wearing my face but not using my voice.

But I cannot meet the thing so like me.

.

I am sick, locked in a room and out of reach

From popular voices and popular minds.

A kingdom of shadows and a throne of isolation.

I cannot be healed by the easy breath of the south,

Or the firm warning trickling down the cold fingers of the north

Because there is a creature occupying my skin,

Stealing the life that should be mine.

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Silver Serpent Books

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