Gone Again

Malaria
A fevertree sprouts, blooms full in my head
its canopy shoots limbs, which spike and spread.
Lightning thunderbolts through large and small veins
wraps legs, arms, and torso in rusted chains.
 
When lightning turns inside: it moltens blood:
my desert-dry nightmare dreams of a flood.
One moment blood boils, then turns to a freeze
next moment I’m fetus-curled on my knees.
 
I drift away to my own Neverland
where I can’t feel my toes: my legs won’t stand.
I’ve disappeared and I cannot return
stranded in bed, my Soul jumps to The Burn.
 
Inferno flames will encompass my night
devouring my will and my strength to fight.
My body falls backward, into the Void ~
plunges through space like a cell group, destroyed.
 
How can I explain my blood is on fire?
Igniting embers, creating a pyre.
Intermittently, my mind will awake
to my body’s freezing, metallic ache.
 
I cannot speak as I lay in my bed
while lyrics and songs sing loud in my head
but I can’t be heard
no, I can’t be heard.
No one can see it and, still, no one hears
as my Consciousness slips through grinding gears.
 
Metal grows bolder and sits on my tongue
and I can’t recall how that song was sung.
I watch flames flare on the back of my lids
surging to temps, which my body forbids….
 
I feel myself dying and lifting fast
is this breath the one that will be my last?
Awakened just now in a pool of sweat
I hear the whispers “your time is not yet”.
 
Beg the end because I can’t win this war ~
now I understand what those Prayers were for.
I walk and walk then I take off in flight
escape through the velvet of deep dark night.
 
Deep lies the darkness
and dark is my plight
gone, gone the moment
I could win this fight.
 
Bright shines the moonlight
it beckons me still…
circle the wagons
and protect my will.
 
I die ~ then, I’m born
again and again…
 
 
 
by Barbara Helvey Hughes, 2020