I do not recognise my body.
The discolouration on my face,
My scaley dry skin,
My nails that shift to pierce my flesh,
My scalp that dries up and turns my hair into needles I cannot bear to touch.
But they don't feel like they are mine.
They are now foreign to me.
Like the antibodies that enter my bloodstream
to fight against the tiny Goliaths that have my pills throw stones in hopes of knocking them down.
Like the medication that I have to put on like a mask to protect this skin.
Like the gloves and the socks and the jackets that are made to guard my limbs that go from numbness to sharp piercing shingles.
This body is no longer my own.
My mind is the nucleus to a cell that is dead.
My fingers do their own dance when I tell them to behave.
My muscles feel like tofu churning in the bag of skin.
My heart races and I hear and I feel and I fear the throbbing in my ears and throat would take my hearing too.
This body is no longer my own.
How can something so physical feel so unreal.
I talk to my body, I tell it to behave.
But I talk to it like it's a bag of flesh and bones, not like it is me.
This distance keeps my mind awake.
But it also never lets me sleep.
It's not a horrible thing,
It's just strange.
It's strange to feel like you are trapped in a cage that's slowly killing and restoring itself at the same time.
You don't really have a choice to leave
So you turn the cage into a friend you confide in.
Body, please behave.