After Mei Yao Chen

The night sticks to my skin
like tar. It surrounds me.
It sucks up the light.
I look for the moon or a star.
They’re nowhere to be seen.
My eyes glow like fiery ice.
Hot coals are burning my spleen.
My stomach is full of lead.
Snakes wriggle through my veins.
Worms eat into my brain.
Let me wake if this is a dream,
or are things as they seem?
Leaves cling to my shoes,
leaves that are dead.
I stumble, lost in the dark.
I’m a miserable coward,
and my wife is dying in her bed.