ON HAVING AN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE
I bring my own house down
I build and break with the same hands
There’s nothing to show for my work
I inhabit a strange land between disagreeable borders
There is a monster in the closet of this skin
She is the spitting image of me
She has keys I didn’t give her
She is an anarchist
She likes the ash fire makes of me
Loves when I smell of smoke
At night, she scrapes my bones together for warmth
Sends up signals when I cry SOS
She loves seeing me burn
To become the flood
That smothers the flames
I drown here
She is an undertow with the strongest hands
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MÉNIÉRE'S FLARE
and just like that
a light goes out
a bulb blows
sound becomes shadow
each sentence a gang in a dark alley
at the wrong time of night
the doctors
document the decline in angles
flat terrain and steep slopes
a landslide of loss
silence swallows everything
enjoys the taste of my pride
keeps me on a strict diet of asking for help
of needing accommodation
the blare of the tv
becomes whisper to me
a foreshadowing of the silent movie
my life becomes
spectacle
a 3 ringed circus
too many eyes on me
as each act unfolds
i become
“special” and suspicious
a dim light
flickering
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WRECKING BALL
sometimes work
is a wrecking ball
makes me a high rise
with good reason to crumble
sometimes play
turns me to kindling
kissed by my own flame
burned into ash
I push the boulder
of this body uphill
just to pick up the mail
turn into tortoise
trapped in the rigid shell
of you look so healthy
how incredible this body
as it summits into speed bumps
into fog and pulse and bruise
magnificent in its invisible injury
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