Dancing with Lyme

By Cathy Donelan

It took the life out of me.

Cold sweats with a shiver of something new – 

 

a ‘ningle’, if that’s even a word.

It doesn’t sit right on the flat of my tongue

but I can feel it in my stomach.

They prefer to travel, crawling

rocks around one’s neck.

 

It found solace.

Thriving within,

taking words and places from me too.

 

They burn you for killing them.

Sadistic bastards set a fire in the brain,

started a revolution in patches of muscle,

built trenches beneath.

Bulging lymphatic lumps,

golf balls emerge from my feet.

 

Casualties will be had,

unavoidable in all wars of territory.

Small traces will linger

under skin,

a new landscape is mapped.

 

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Cover photo by Adrien King on Unsplash