Four A.M.

Four in the morning and the fever broke.

The sweat had soaked everything, no joke.

My skin was cool. I could think again.

My hands were steady. No more shaking then.

The sheets were stuck to me like glue.

They knew I wasn't ready, it's true.

Knew I'd rather stay in that fever dream

than come back to being part of this scheme.

The heat had kept me elsewhere, away.

The fever was a kind of stay—

a place where you don't have to be yourself,

where your body's the boss, your mind on the shelf.

But now it's gone. I'm awake and clear.

I'm back in my skin. I'm here. I'm here.

And there's a vertigo in being well,

a disorientation I can't quite tell—

is it relief or is it loss?

Is it the fever breaking, or am I the cost?