Seasonal Afflictions
By Te’Kia Miller
In the pre-dawn hours
The menace wakens me
To a bout of vertigo
Before torture begins
The maniacal laughter of jackhammers
Splinter my head, my body convulsing
With every violent sneeze
And this insidious coughing
Has malice intent for chest and throat
Water escapes their ducts
Overflowing eye-lashed confines
And running wildly down
These tensed cheeks
Pressure seizes control
Gripping my nasal cavity
Giving cause to a diabolically congested gate;
Still, rivers run through each nostril
So the trash-can has died
Smothered beneath a mound of
Deformed tissues engorged
On strange colored slime
Original.
Te'Kia Miller 