I’ll be better in the morning.
Once the sun kisses my blank face, the sickness will drain from my blood, and I’ll sweat out the fever that reddens my skin.
My breaths will no longer be short and hot, my limbs will move quickly, featherlight, and my gaze will stay forward.
My mind will be full of lovely emptiness.
Your hand will meet my shoulder with nothing more than a change in temperature, and I will no longer waste hours in bed, rotting in between aching consciousness and heated dreams.
This disease often manifests in madness.
There is no symptom more infectious—more painful and bloody, than my skin feeling your breath blow through the window, my ears echoing your voice in the beeping machines and rolling wheels.
Your scent permeates my hospital gown.
You blink and the covers rustle.
If my lips ask you to kiss them, please know it’s another symptom; please know I’m wishing I were up and about, clogged full of tissue and pain medication.
If my fingertips meet your neck, if they pull themselves through your hair, I am infected. Nothing more.
Viruses wish to spread, that is their nature.
There is poison in my veins and my brain and my sickly heart.
And I’m sure, it’ll be gone in the morning.
When the sun washes my blank face, I will be cured.
I will be new, fresh as laundry.
As my pale room floods with white light, you will be a stranger, and we will be clean again.
I swear to you tomorrow is the day.
The morning will dawn clear and bright—a clinical white.
It will be sterile, simple, and free of mess.
The dawn will come down like rain, it will soak me through to my tainted soul.