The nurse got me in one stick
A bed is ready for me upstairs,
just as my angry ER neighbor reaches higher octave
The blankets are heated
Most of the staff is kind
Trying their best
I’m losing blood
Not enough for transfusion
More often I find myself floating above the stiff hospital bed on a cloud of Dilaudid
I shuffle to the window in the morning
Stare longingly into the cemetery below
A well kept patch of grass
A smattering of carved stone
No needles
No wires
No tubes
No beeps
No yelling
Peace

My body is my own worst enemy
Trapped.
inside - and stuck
Inside - with no escape
from the claws of this illness that
take hold of me

Rage - it pours from me
still, even though I have
no energy
left

I am left with scraps of
who I once was
- - and now?
What am I but a shadow of a previous
copy version of me  

I yearn and I grieve and I plead
but I am led yet again and again
to an endless tunnel of dread
that fills me to the brim
with nothing left but
the face of the victim
staring back at me in the mirror

I fear so much and so often -
this weakness has a grip so fierce on me
this sickness that has stolen so much from me
this demon has ****** and fed
on every bit of strength I have bled
of every bit of happiness I have shed
and left me with -
nothing

Nothing but empty vacancy
That is how it feels to be stuck
inside
a body that can no longer feel
normalcy

My body is my own worst enemy
Trapped.
inside - and stuck
inside - with no escape
So here I stay
Stuck and inside - and
Trapped
with no escape

I hope you will be there with me
In the long winter without spring:
Ever green, star bright, true north.

The pines bent under the weight of snow
Are glad of the long-awaited rest.
We will tuck beneath white sheets.
My roots tangle with yours -
Lean your limbs on me,
I will hold your hand.

I will love you as you cough,
I will love you as you fall,
I will love you in all sickness.

In our autumn we will gather harvest,
A wealth of sweet golden years well-ripened.
When the storms come
And night darkens our hearth,
I will keep a fire for you.
My black coal-heart burns slow.

Because you are mine.
Because I belong to you.
Because when we return to earth
And become good loam,
The flowers that grow on me
Will bloom for you.