Sick Dreams by Kurt Van Ristell
CW: Illness

Fever. Set the bed on
Fire. Synaptic
Spasms. A vast, crumpled range—
Impossible to fathom—
Mountains of confused: somehow, sleepful bliss. Pills hiss.
Fizz in my liquid
Abdomen. Release numbness; raw liver doles morphine as
My throat whistles like a chimney-
Sweep. Cough baby green tissue-peaks.
Mucus. Rattle. Baking wet bedsheets. And
My last, lucid thought
As I stand contrapposto, leer over the sublime, lipped
Sinkhole. A wrap of foul skin which aches to even dream of
Touching. My mind dances on dull knives. Try to drift but
Dcmofisort cosnmues all room for roiatanl touhhgt, and I wnoedr why the wrlod lkoos the smae, but mkaes no snese aymnroe.
Kurt Van Ristell is a poet and author living in South London. He works in education, which is a storyteller’s boon. He writes around his life experiences, which reflect his London upbringing filtered through his mixed-race background. His poems have appeared/are forthcoming in Bandit Fiction and with Shayel Magazine.