June’s Interlude

A poem about chronic illness

Photo by Anna Shvets: https://www.pexels.com/photo/romantic-black-woman-with-chamomiles-in-hair-3746226/

Sometimes I gaze up at God
to remember His voice is still loud
that this deserted island
my feet are sunken into
is only a mirage drawn by you.

Continue to try your best.
Twist my limbs until they shake
like branches in the wind,
sit within my breast,
rip my heart into syncopation,
speckle the skin of my chest with ink,
like you’re rewriting the story of me
into a story of us.

But there is no us,
there has never been an us,
and there will never be an us.
I will continue to wash my hands of you
until my palms are pruned,
until the cold shoulder of February
becomes the warm embrace of June.

I may not be immune,
but I am loved.
I imagine that feels similar,
in some strange, otherworldly way.

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