Learning to Walk

My bed, a refuge.
Here, the covers make of me a
second flesh,
protecting me from the harsh winds
and blistering suns.
For my life, as long as my breath can remember,
I have been a mole,
scrounging around my sheets,
abounding on the bed,
wallowing the darkness that darkness can allow.
Constant people, mirrors of people,
floating by my face,
checking the tubes, hollow veins of my body,
haunting my dreams, awake and asleep.
My nighttime terrors, confused by my daytime horrors,
convinced me it did not matter when my eyes were closed.
Today, my fingers feel out for my legs,
my shriveled excuses for legs.
I could be lucky to feel.
I could be lucky to feel anything,
a needle prick, a hint at cold, the flesh of a woman,
and respond with my flesh, controlling my fear and pain and private convulsion,
and contolling hers as well.
But, that,
that,
may never be again.

I sigh. My breath a rattling revulsion,
my brain asea without a propeller,
my fingers...
my legs...
She comes in now, her deft hands plowing through my vitals.
She nods and grabs on to my ankles and pulls my feet
hard to the floor.
She tells me it's time to walk.
She is kind. Her eyes telling me she cares, though
I am revolting.
She leans in close, rose water and essence filling my once
useful nostrils.
She tells me not to be afraid.
Yet, I know not how.
My flesh stings, singeing stings, melting stings, a malificient
writhing.
She leans in again, whispering a triumphant fanfare, her shampoo
dousing me in sunlight.
What am I to do now?
What is my expectation?
Who am I do dissapoint such an angel?
My body, though it aches, screams louder to be upright.
My bed, once coddling, now appears to be little more than
a box of nails, the open maw of a beastial antagonist.
I have suffered enough.
I thrust my shoulders heavenward,
heaving my spoiled body toward this emissary of kindness.
Though my flesh is covered in the memory of flame,
her hands catch me in ash.
I am up, and the world spins for the first time in years.