I once had a fever so high,
I was left to my bed for 7 days.
There was a man,
Standing on my mattress with a shovel
Lifting chunks out of it angrily.
He wiped his brow and his sweat
Collected in the divots of my blanket
And made a little pond.
A scum pond,
With talking frogs and lily pads.
The pond grew deeper as the man dug harder and sweated.
I was drowning.
A goldsh swam up my throat and flopped around in my mouth.
I clenched my jaw and tossed and turned in the scum pond.
White and gray algae blinding me,
And filling my nose with fuzzy mold.
I tried to scream and retrieve the fish from the back of my mouth.
I was choking.
I tried to kick, but the man was standing on my legs.
His weight was too much to bear
And I feared that shovel would dismount onto my head
And split my skull if I provoked him any more.
I tried to yank the sh out again but it struggled.
It attached its jaws to the opening of my throat and it would not budge.
I yanked.
And I screamed.
And my mother came rushing into the room, tripping over her feet.
I was trying to rip out my tongue.
She fixed my blankets.
She stroked my hair that stuck to me like cotton candy dissolving in water.
I wanted to cry but feared I’d fill the pond again.
When my fever broke, I realized the man and the fish were all a dream,
And so was she.