Every inch of my body is screaming, blazed with fire
There's lightning between my shoulder blades
Rain dripping from my dewy greens
And electricity weaving between my tendons

There is a chainsaw cutting my bones
There are needles piercing through my chest
There is lava rushing through my veins
There is a hurricane in my head

I can feel my cells shrinking
I can feel my branches breaking
I can feel my leaves crumbling

Everything hurts and there is no remedy
This is the life of inevitable misery

I feel as if my head is sliding off my neck like ice cream melting down the cone. I am a witch melting, shrinking smaller as my spine stacks horizontally like shiplap. My body has been refurbished into a pinball machine. Something so tiny as a silver ball destroys so much. It bullets through my body, shooting off like Cuban missiles. I feel the turmoil and chaos seeping through the gutters of this old home of bones. It's like spilled oil sludging through my blood vessels or rats scattering through a sewer, nibbling and feasting away on these muscles of mine until they are frayed like gnawed-on cable wires. At odd hours of the night when time is propelled by the safe travels of breath (that weave in and out like Victorians at a ball) from sleepy children who have yet been touched by monsters or nymphs, whereas each of my breaths steer Odysseus's weather-beaten boat through ten years of treachery. My heavy, melting head slowly sloping like clay off a bust makes its home on my dingy pillow as I lay on a prison bed with cold shackles around my ankles that make my bones shatter into a mosaic as if that could shrink my ankles so I can slip out. I feel like a chained hawk at these hours of the night when I just want to fly until I screech to a halt and flail over the cliff that waterfalls into the ends of the universe. I'd be reluctant at first, perhaps, but what other escape does one have other than to make an autopsist's Y-incision on one's body, then slip out like a hermit crab freeing himself from his heavy shell? Embarking onto a new dimension where there's hope for a radical swap of atoms that don't shape a crippled, deteriorating human is the only choice when you want to live a life other than what you were cursed with. May we then find peace and live as naked souls bearing no heavy shells.

Sometimes I believe my body is cursed
When I am burdened with all this pain
Wearing my disability like a bright, red stain
I think ahead to many years when it’ll be worse
When I can’t pick up a pen or unbutton my shirt
Or finish school or start a career
When more and more limitations start to appear
Sometimes I believe my body is cursed

‘it could be worse’ is a foolish expression
it brings no peace of mind
it’s just dismisses my issues
makes me feel small inside
my pain and suffering is real
so please don’t undermine
i’d rather hear it could be better
or stay quiet this time

My body is a temple, one I must uphold.
My body is a temple,
A temple with a few bricks askew?
The foundations no longer stable?
Moss and ivy growing up the sides, finding all the crevasses.

To look at, all but a natural beauty.
I'm weathered at such a ripe young age.
My body is a temple.
But this temple needs a grave.

I can't call the architect,
To tell them they ****** up.
All the sympathetic looks, or sideways glares.
No one truly understand the amount I learn,
from the way they look at me.

My body is a safety hazard.
No warning sign required.
Hips and arms clicking and cracking. Legs, back and neck no better

Ease me up gently and handle with care.
I'll bruise with the slightest pressure.
My temple may as well be completely collapsed right on top of me.

My temple has a leak causing the structure to rot.
I don't have the energy,
To fix myself again.
I don't have the energy.
I'm barely even still me.

I see my mirror posted on my wall.
I stop and stare at what I see.
I can't fix the mess in front of me.
Eyes swallowed by darkness and a smile that hides my misery.
I try to fathom how this all came to be..

What happened to me?

A life stolen by illness and disability.
Invisible ones that most of the time, you can't see.
I try to hide behind a strong facade.
Deep down inside, I quit.
I'm tired of playing games.

So I hide my thoughts and push them away.
I stand up tall, and push through the day.
But, When no one's looking, to my knees, I pray..

For. Just. One. Day.