With this heart sickness I have borne,
I do not need soothing vapor or gentle word.
Its roots run so deep into my chest,
only a scalpel, sharp and painful, can reach.
I do not find relief in affirmations,
but in those piercing questions that drench the soul
in sunlight:
the only true antiseptic for secrets.
I do not find gentle footsteps healing,
for they tread gingerly around my wounds,
that same misguided timidness
allowing infection already to abscess in my bones.
I need Truth, the surgeon's knife to cut
and expose it down to its root,
before excising the cancer of the mind
that metastasizes each passing day.
I am beyond tentative measures.
No, it is purposeful and heartwrenching
difficult things that my disease would have me
shy from, as those who treat me do,
that serve as the panacea
for the ravenous infestation in my soul.
And if it is a thing I must do alone,
and all these helpers nothing more than smoke,
let it be so
and I will draw the knife myself.
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