The Vessel

Stop, the saw in his leg and a kill on the ground
The fan above us stopped spinning
His head collapsed
And his life bled out and he looked to me and wept
What's in my head?
What's in our head?

Severe fungal necrotizing fasciitis, pyoderma gangrenosum
Subjected to constant painful ineffective forms of treatment
Inconclusive medical inspections that had made me want to die
In one night I had contracted multitudes of rare aggressive skin disorders
I saw that night a blade of sky colliding with the earth behind our home
I ran to find a symbol burned into the dirt

The saw in his leg and a kill on the ground
The fan above us stopped spinning
His head collapsed
And his life bled out and he looked to me and wept
What's in my head?
What's in our head?

Although diagnosed as non-contagious
My creators could not hide their clear repulsion at my ebolic appearance
(With every dawn I wade in a film of my disease)
I live behind a rancid camouflage of leaking bandage
Unable to see myself without inducing bouts of vomit

Now the only life I know is through our kitchen window
Watching the perfect family dine and laugh while I eat my fingers
(Each grin a spade that fills my empty well with envy)
The father, a pillar, the pinnacle of a true guardian
Him and his son had both looked at the symbol
That night a light came from a hole in the sky

We all saw the trilobite like insignia melt into the field like napalm
What we witnessed was beyond what we could comprehend
The sight of it had made the father's son a cripple and my skin decay
The guardian built a fortress for his son around an oak that he cannot climb
It's from this vantage that I watch them and imagine that I was him and I think of
Inhabiting the vessel

I became a protective watchful invisible silent auxiliary member of their family
My affliction became beyond physical
Agoraphobia made me a prisoner
Tried to peel it off, tried to cut it off, tried to burn it off
Tried to pray to God for guidance or interaction with anyone
I communicate only with the fan in my ceiling

I know that it's come alive, taking control of me
Upping its spinning to make me leave home
The city is hiding the worst of me
Any that look at me turn their head one eighty
Every night I go home and take refuge in the fortress
Every day I watch the father deteriorate
I fear the symbol corrupted his brain

He drags his son outside and makes him try to climb the ladder
He cuts his chair up with a sawblade made of pressured water
(He has become unworthy of his skin)
His son crawls back inside, he follows with the water cutter
The man is clearly gone, the sign inside has taken over

The guardian I praised is not the man I see
The man is clearly gone, the sign inside has taken over
(The windows painted red, the mist of blood is blinding)
I build up the heart rate to climb down the ladder in spite of my image
I black out my fear and walk into the thick of the mist
The father was crying and cutting his family up
He nicked his artery at the mere sight of me then died

The ceiling fan went silent

With the saw I took his skin
I then began to stitch the family back together
I have cured the antibody
I have lived for thirteen days inside this vessel
Now I wait here for another
When once more the sky shall open