HEALTH | INSPIRATION | Page 126 of 136 | Health, Reflection, and Poetry for the Journey of Life

Fleur.

Fluid.
Limbs flooded,
lungs immersed,
skin engorged-
you chase it off.
Pill
after pill.

Nights.
Twilight wheezes
upon three pillows.
Four.
Five.

Bare
are your breaths
as you gasp,
fight-
hunger unquenched.

Stairs
unconquerable,
indomitable,
fatigue intractable.
Slowly you ascend.

Still
you conquer,
embrace
love,
life,
strength.
Your heart full.

Your dilated cardiomyopathy.

Tendons, vessels, muscle, bone-
little more than its sum, alone.
Without life, alone.

A heart upon your fingers,
fibers smooth, firmness lingers.
A pump sleeps, alone.

Nerves, severed and denuded,
shimmering, taut, function diluted.
Pain without feeling, alone.

A lung, delicate sponge, blackened,
absorbs an essence, greyed, maddened.
Vacant sacs, stale breaths, alone.

The cerebrum, split, its valleys and mounds,
embodies a soul, full, without bounds.
My lifeless being is nothing alone.