IVs and a cannulas that bind you to a bed that isn’t yours,
we are twisted-sick, playing God, if only for a moment.
Your freckled hand barred tighter around mine,
drawing my eyes to the bruises that seemingly
seep through blood-flecked gauze.
Every breath a shiver,
every shiver, a heartbeat closer
and each lungful sharper than the last.

I can feel dwindling stars so impenetrably far away,
sweltering, boundless, shaking-free as they please.
With your waning smile,
that nearly masked your anguish, we are
taking on space now, just us,
we are the atoms that make up our universe, we are
unstable and we are
collapsing and we are,
expanding and growing and we are,
bursting with what
little life
we have left.