With You. Always.

Spirited away by illnesses of body and mind, delirium took me for seven days — a poetic story of unconditional love

Photo by Gregoire Jeanneau on Unsplash

I had fallen to the tile floor, my blood
Set to nearly feverish boil
While my body continued the fight.
Viral and emotional onslaughts combined
Into a dreadful storm;
A violent tempest behind my eyes.
My lungs lurched,
Palms burned,
Veins surged, and then
Cold cloths touched my forehead.

He’d found me
In my grief-and-illness stew,
Carried me to our bed,
And did not leave my side for seven days.

I dreamed of moving
Back into my childhood apartment
And instead of three bedrooms
There were four;
Each one empty and dark.
I peered into the rooms
One by one
To lonely echoes
Faraway wails
And a chill in my spine.