“Brave the storm that was meant to break us…”
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians
From January to July
I was dying
the whole time…
Not metaphorically.
Not dramatically.
Quietly. Slowly.
One symptom at a time.
My body became
a house with alarms
going off in every room.
Nausea,
a stomach turning
against itself.
Heartburn,
a furnace burning
behind my ribs.
Bloody shits,
my insides spilling
the war I couldn’t see.
Constipation,
a body refusing
to let go.
Headaches,
a pressure drill
boring through my skull.
Body aches,
like every bone
had been bruised from the inside.
A perpetual back pain,
a dull knife
left twisted in my spine.
A shy bladder,
a traitor organ
whispering warnings
before every exit.
My body kept a ledger
of every insult,
every chemical assault,
every battle scar
no one else could see.
The world saw me standing.
It didn’t see
the battlefield
beneath my skin.