you deploy an army into my veins. the solution holds light. let it pass.
 
through is not a word I can use here. in the dimness. where I am always two steps
from catastrophe. from being thrown back to some wounded beginning. the place
of unknowing. I love the prefix un-
 
undoing
unsure
unofficial
unnecessary
 
unill
 
doesn’t exist. so I am completely. necessarily. here. with shooting pain
in my arm from needle incompetency or tender skin. this writing. this naming
as necessary as the pain to stop this progression. more nerves destroyed. I am
waiting
 
for the medicine army to put up their shields. shield my body. from my body. free me
from me. my soldiers protect me from my own future. but they also destroy what
is usual. drones taking out the target. but also the fruit vendor. always selling plums
or apples in fall.
 
I fall
 
waiting
 
for treatment. my muscles spasm a tune I didn’t write. or maybe
it is the song that doesn’t make the album. lost. but palimpsest in my left cheek.
 
did you break your butt? my daughter asked after she stopped howling
 
and hugging me. she might have said ass actually. but that makes it seem funny and
it wasn’t. except when I retell it now. I need more days not tired. not sick.
for her. even my hand is sick. numb. number more. I dislike that suffix. it accelerates.
adds momentum. makes me dizzy
 
-er than usual.
 
progresses me

 

from falling 2 to 3 times a year. to wheelchair. mother failure is a real thing. you feel it

even if you don’t do it. unlike my hands. which the doctor says are strong. but feel nothing.