The sweet disease
=================

* Suzanne Edison

![Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/190/42/E1261/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/42/E1261/F1)

Image courtesy of CoffeeAndMilk/iStock

> His lips on mine like algal blooms on
> 
> stagnant water spread me.
> 
> Our legs entwined as milfoil, bound
> 
> as we once were to the stop & go & go & go
> 
> until we thought we were gone.

> Immune to thoughts of disease, the rush
> 
> of lust’s sweetness fuelled me.
> 
> I rose to his touch like the Sagrada Familia —
> 
> ever-expanding, unfinished cathedral —
> 
> my skin translucent as leaded panes, the
> 
> holy, holy, whole

> I imagined embraceable. My immunity
> 
> is now fractured; highs and lows
> 
> of sugar siphon spontaneity.
> 
> Ebbing, my mind reels in undertow and
> 
> worry: will I die
> 
> in a car crash, will I injure others
> 
> with words spouted

> at random, will anyone stay with me as I surf
> 
> this wave, forever? In endless routines
> 
> I claim my body’s rites: daily test strips,
> 
> calculated eating, and stake out its beauty.

> Stained and glassed my tattooed cells
> 
> radiate a full house of hues.
> 
> Replicating their miscoded chain
> 
> in a roar of rearranged notes, they attack.

> Some days I am shaky, beached,
> 
> untouchable. Other times I’m cresting
> 
> as I come ashore, as if the islets of Langerhans —
> 
> birthplace of insulin — were Hawaiian, full

> of birdsong and their saving ichor,
> 
> which I must now inject
> 
> into this gyrating score, this chemistry
> 
> humming with flagrancy.

## Footnotes

*   This article has not been peer reviewed.