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The illness holds you from the inside out, closer than any lover, closer than any rumor of god. The slow gray tide of a dying afternoon drains invisibly into the hectic green field. Breathing is the ensorcellment of the flocks, walking the languor of the herds. The cold water, the hot coffee, the fleck and wheeze of every tortured cough. Raise the fence, thinking of the settle couch. Raise the fence, the warm bed like a dream long ago dissolved in the essence of the day.

What was witnessed in the tide of wild winds, the rough embrace of the livid world set upon the static remnants of the world once seen. The precious images we swaddle tight in our myths and longings, a house, a hearth, a family now lost to discord, memory, and time. Dreams of dying tangling sweetly with the terror of a fleeting shallow breath. Dreams of belonging, of happy tables and glad hands, all swallowed by the soul of the storm. Nothing lasts, nothing lost-- that dense conundrum felt so acutely at either bookend of night or day. Everything is alright, seen from enough of a distance.

Commit a dozen temporary solutions, little pardons granted by urgency towards clarity, and so many small flaws seem pardoned. The hands that clasp tight heart and lungs a measure of a love so deep and brutal it seethes in the beauty of your blood. Cough until the stars are all you can see. Make a wish. Remember the moment when the light was just right. Remember how bright the flames flicker and shine, in that precious moment before that last candle is blown out.