Lorenzo is what I call my lupus
Because …. Why not?!
From now on, it’ll be just the two of us
So best commit and tie that knot

Lorenzo was the guy I never noticed
Sometimes trying to give out a sign
And when quiet, never really missed
Resigned to be benign

But every signal missed
Simply lingered and formed a stack
Their evolution was dismissed
So came the revolt…the unprovoked attack

Lorenzo was sad, Lorenzo was mad….Lorenzo wanted to be seen
Depression, anxiety, inflammation - my body on fire
Lorenzo hit and Lorenzo kicked…. I found out he could be mean
Fatigue and ….what was I saying?..panic levels going higher

It took nearly a year but finally I met
him
No longer in shadows haunting my body
Here in the open, Lorenzo didn’t look so grim
Now introduced, it took time but I asked Lorenzo to be my buddy

I asked him to help me know
When what I was doing triggered him
He agreed to be patient and take it slow
He’d stick around and wouldn’t act out on a whim

We sat down in the comfort of our home
I asked him questions he couldn’t answer

Where did he come from?
How long had he been around?
Why hadn’t he wanted to be found?
Did I do something wrong?
Was I going to be sufficiently strong?
Would I ever go back to being fine?

But as he shrugged the questions away
Lorenzo said to me : “at the end of the day
I don’t make you better or worse…
I am with you, for better and worse!”

She's the heroine, yet she knows it, not.
The life I breathe on the daily.
If I could harbor her pain
I would in a minute, because the way she looks..
it breaks me..

Give me her scars, i'll cry through the pain
just to give her some air.
if it comes to it, let me die for her..
because i can't bare the thought of her loss.

She may not be with me long,
the glass heart shatters at thought.
the fragments lodged within my throat
the constant stress and anxiety.

my mind plays the worst on repeat
mental preparation for the catastrophic mind
"i'm sorry, she's gone" riddles the echoes inside my head
the dams release under the lash and suddenly it's too much to close.

We're not here forever, i know.
The premature entity makes me scream "why".
there's not enough anyone can say in the world,
that will help me once she leaves me.

She'll always be with you, wherever you are
but that doesn't fill the void.
the warmth that she carries will dissipate,
although it feels a little like that now.

I love her more than humanly possible.
She's the light within my life.
Mama, dear mama. I love you so.
I'd give up my life for you.

My hands are shaking
My heart is racing
My feet are pacing
They think I'm faking

My bones turn to stone
It's all I've ever known
My muscles atrophy
Pain got the best of me

It's invisible and deceitful
Failures made me cynical
Solutions are only temporary
This body of mine is the enemy

Inflammation spreads like wildfire
I'm tired of being so tired
Nothing stops the torture, but
I'm fighting like a soldier

My body rebels
It is a prison cell
Trapped in my own hell
Gunshots fire inside
I really have tried

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.

A beautiful mountain, white with snow
A light breeze, a wind ice cold
Frozen in time, I stare in awe
Under ice is a heart so raw
Diamonds glistening, ice shimmering
An imbalance of time and minds dancing
Beauty and despair frozen in ice
Waiting for summer sun to pay the price
Still and quiet, but the pain screams in your head
Frozen in place beside your bed
Staring into the pains
A hundred rocks flow through your veins
A thousand needles biting skin
Outward calm, but screaming within
Summer warmth approaching
Ice slowly melting, diamonds gleaming
With perseverance you break the ice
It falls, shattering, what a sacrifice
I watch as there is nothing I can do
As your body shed the ice encasing you
It is beauty and despair, intertwined
Dripping to the floor, Oh how I adore
To watch you come alive. An uproar!
No longer frozen, full of motion
As if watching a glistening ocean
You stand tall, high above us all
For you melted the ice, made it fall
Leaving only a memory
Your fight so strong, dauntlessly
Standing, living, believing, and yet...
Your feet are wet, so with regret
I must inform of icy returns
Gone are the days of summer sunburns
For ice will come, it will be done
Your body shunned from our warm sun
You will freeze again, be lost again
Icy diamonds will shine like back then
You must remain strong while waiting,
Frozen in time that is crippling
Shed your ice everyday, overcome
One day Summer will stay and all this will be done

"A man is a wolf to another man",
What utter nonsense! What a silly thing to say!
I see no wolf-like qualities in the hearts of men,
No shy, retiring qualities, or unerring loyalty,
And certainly haven't noticed that men ****
Only when absolutely necessary for survival.

Perhaps it is I who am being foolish though?
As I stare deep into the noble eyes of the wolf
And see no hint of malice, or greed,
Or religious and political ideologies,
Or desire for such petty things as man wants.

Yes, indeed! Surely the fault lies with me,
For I am human, and can't begin to understand
Such simple things that those wild beasts can
Seem to so effortlessly comprehend- compassion,
Love, respect, and sense of unity.

Men are not wolves in the eyes of other men. No,
It doesn't describe the potentially ruthless way
We act upon meeting a stranger of our own species.
I wish such accurate statements as this held sway;
Men are like men to other men- **** homini ****
Since we've proof that men will oft rip men to pieces.

nerves stalk the battlefield, strangling,
only to beat out another breathe. only
to continue limping lamely and
timidly, I wander

home, holding my own
body bag. Tongue tied and
Toe-tagged:

forfeit!

No* *extra salt on these taste buds
  Garlic; a thing of the past
     Cinnamon; might as well be Garlic
        never, a bath in the sun switches it on
          However: it seems I'm not allergic
             to  the taste of your beautiful ruin,
               it's magic, the dark
                  *all consuming