Oh little disease,
would you take from me,
all that life has come to mean?

If you were to look at me,
if I were to place myself before your eyes
without costume or masque -
you could trace the history of my life
by the path it has left
on my body.

Here is the scar
from the time I fell down
and discovered
just how yellow I could become.

A smooth healed place
glows white on my wrist
where my first love
grew tired
of my inattentive fits
and used her teeth
to get my attention.

There are marks on my feet
from a race run long
in shoes just out of the box.

And a thin scar here...no there,
from the shattering glass
of a bomb thrown to scare.

And my arms
bear the various and sundry,
marks and wounds,
from a work too hard for most -
but it cleanses me.

What you cannot see,
are the injuries within,
and the little disease
that lives inside me.

My little friend,
who most likely,
will be my last company
and end.

It strikes me as funny.
that I wear my past on my body
yet the future
is something you cannot see.
Only I know
it is already written
deep within me.
In my cells
sleeping so sound,
tossing fitfully
when the nightmares come around.

My whole life now,
my whole life -
which till now was
so absent minded
as not to feel the pain
as I picked up my scars
along the way,
my whole life,
is devoted
to paying such close attention
to my little friend's whims,
that sometimes it seems,
as if my little disease,
is quite a bit larger
than me.

Sometimes.

But I am learning
that although my past
may be tattooed and carved
into me,
it is nothing more
nor less,
than an interesting
but harmless memory.

And my future,
so clearly written down,
isn't even close
to being here.

In between.
In between...
there are years.

I know,
and take comfort in,
the knowledge that unlike my youth
and the years I passed it in,
I do not go into the future alone.

My little disease,
my friend,
will be the type of companion
who will always
remind me
to look closer
and pay attention.

Don't miss a thing.

For unlike before,
I am so very aware of my end
and wish to live the years leading to it
rather than read how they have been,
from the pages
of my skin.