Praying for a (Marathon) Miracle

 

The summertime flu comes around once

a year, always when you need it least.

 

But it’s that slow ache brings you back

to life. Stuffy head and heavy heart

 

broken reminders of things loved

and missed, required when you lack.

 

It signals that you have a mind

creative, a heart still beating, slowly

 

and then quick, a push and pull of strength

you didn’t know you had. You resist

 

the temptation of medicine calling

from the cabinet not wanting the numb

 

that comes. But it’s the ideas you crave,

the hallucinations that ensue,

 

the spin of the world going

dizzy and sideways – just for you.