If I could tell you

everything I long for

I would be wiped clean, barely a skeleton

because my body, my mass of muscle and tissue and particle

is sick with yearning

a disease long untreated.

But it is the cure that scares me

all of that exposed flesh, free but wholly undisciplined

and without order

My disease protects me

covers my ears so I can’t hear the screaming

of my subjugated heart.