Breaking

4 a.m. and the fever breaks.

My skin is cool against the sheet.

My forehead finally wakes

to being something neat.

This is what I wanted.

This is what I asked for

when I was burning, haunted,

when I couldn't ignore

the way my body wasn't mine.

But now the heat is done,

I have to feel

the ache, the things undone,

the test of being real,

which is harder than pain.

The fever was relief.

I didn't know it then.

For two days, past grief,

I was someone. Now I'm back again

to being myself, which is worse.

I lie here on the cool sheets

and feel the clarity like a curse.

The pillow is cold. The morning meets

me here—readable, ordinary,

with nothing left to hide in.