Diagnosis

Sickness is a larva that burrows into the soil of the body
Emerges seventeen years later as a creaking cicada
Burdening the mind with its annoyance

Sickness is a leech stuck to the skin like cancer
A slug loaded and aimed to kill

Sickness is the silverfish
Elusive and hidden in dark corners

Sickness is the fire ant and a bite that stings
Resulting in the heat of worry

Sickness is a spider softening the drum of the ear
Builds her web of confusion back and forth within the mind,
Hanging her thread on the worn down rafters of nerves

Sickness is the mosquito that hovers out of arms reach
As you lay in sleepless heat, itching

Sickness is the boll weevil that gets into the cereal of your life
And causes you to lose your appetite

Sickness is the cockroach,
An armored scuttle of fear

Sickness is the invasive species of a parasite
Who settles into the lake of the heart
And contaminates all its tributaries

Sickness is the walking stick that is right before your eyes
Yet unseen

Sickness is the tick that hooks on
and will not let go

Sickness is the caterpillar’s cocoon
And the long waiting of something unknown