I am writhing
And burning up
Internal temperature escalating
Skin crawling with a million red-hot ants
Scorching welts and hives rise and fall on my fair skin
Turning me into the surface of Mars
Searing
Dry
Seemingly uninhabitable
For which, I suppose, I should be grateful
But, I’m not
Because something is alive in me
Although the All-Knowing-They
Know Not
Not even one whit
Not even an inkling
What it could possibly be
A virus perhaps, They say
Just wait it out, They say
Just live with it, They say
Fuck
Is this what I have succumbed to?
Just live with it?!
What have I unleashed?
What am I choosing to resist?
What rage am I hiding from?
Yeah, fuck that
As one of my instructors once said
Sometimes a fever is just a fever
And it’s time to stop analyzing it
So… yeah… maybe it is just a fever
And maybe that extremely remote chance
Of it being West Nile
Is only that, an extremely remote chance
Nothing to worry about
And maybe just because They
Could not narrow it down to what it is
But, instead, narrowed it down
To what it is not,
Maybe I should be grateful for that
And maybe, just maybe
The tides are going to change soon for me
‘Cause God and all His angels know
I am tired of being Mars
I am tired of being in bed
I am tired of being weak
I am tired of processing
I am tired of anger
I am tired
Enough already
