Does illness have a voice,
and if so; is it melancholy,
or dark and dank, divulging
deepest despair, or revealing
a vileness of nature?
Discord creeps along my veins,
disrupts muscles, systems failing
under the oppression –
“Stay strong,” friends counsel,
cannot hear the gathering storm,
feel the heaviness cloaking me.
I am not myself, but then;
who am I? Is disease a mutation
of the original sin – punishment
for fatal sins, or redemption
wrapped as trial – the whispers
gain clarity – I am faltering…
(Discord originally appeared here May, 2019. Image my own. Living with chronic, often debilitating disease, is an ongoing challenge. There is no cure, no end in sight, and yet, we must go on. This is for my fellow warriors, wondering, some days, what it is all about.)