MY POEM ,"THE LONELIEST ILLNESS "

                                              

THE LONELIEST ILLNESS

There comes an illness

for which medicine has no name.

The body burns.

The fever rises.

The night keeps its own counsel.

But none of this

is the worst.

The worst

is not knowing

whose name to utter

when pain becomes heavier

than the body.

A closed door.

An unanswered call.

A chair beside the bed

that remains

more faithful

than any friend.

Pain can be endured.

Silence cannot.

The flesh heals

according to its season.

Loneliness

has no season.

There comes an hour

when suffering

no longer asks to be cured.

It asks

to be seen.

One hand

upon the forehead.

One voice

breaking the silence.

One human being

to stand between us

and the emptiness.

That is all.

Without it,

even hope

forgets the way.

Perhaps that is why

the deepest illness

is never the one

the physician discovers.

It is the one

that leaves no wound,

only an empty chair,

and a silence

that outlives the fever.

( Avtar Mota )

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