when you call to me in the darkness

it is cold where the sweat drips down my forehead
between the tickle of my angry coughs

the moon set hours ago behind the white mountains
and under the river. carp are sleeping ignorant

like unkept promises of whirlpools and ripped gauze
floating over the white spray of my falls

mucus drops from the back of my uvula
with an itch and the slight pain of a virus remembered

"get up, get up, get up," i whisper to myself
but I can't move. it's dark. the fireworks aren't until tonight

tomorrow nighty really, since i only know today
even in this half-place betweeen.

breath stutters me awake again, and my knee pops
when I skip over the dirty laundry to the toilet

to puke up all the dead bodies of my defense,
"i'm fine."