After four days of coughing

After four days of coughing,

your body stops being a body

and becomes just the sound

it makes.

This morning when it stopped,

your hand went to your ribs

and found them—not the flesh

you thought was there,

but bone underneath.

Just bone.

You trace the curve with your fingers,

the way they arch and strain,

the way they try to contain

all the fragile machinery within.

Your lungs move inside this cage.

You feel them now. You've never felt them.

It's like discovering your body

is held together mostly by hope,

by the belief that this arrangement

won't come undone

or give way under pressure.

But it's so thin. The skin is so thin.

Just this much between you and the ground,

just this much between the cage

and falling.

You breathe deliberately now,

aware of every bone, every gap,

every place where fragility

is all you've ever been.