Degree

The fever rises in me, washing across my skeleton like splashes in a hot tub, I can't tell what's the radiator steaming along the side of my leg, I forget how to breathe. The scarier tests come back negative, we've just forgotten what a regular old infection is like, was it always this immobilizing? I lie in bed and watch the stories unfurl, how does it always work like this, how does it still manage to surprise you? 

I fall asleep in the bath, later, I drift into the voids of the in betweens, everything becomes poetry in the flow. 

If the word returns to me with this illness,
I don't want it ever to pass.