NEW LIGHT

 NEW LIGHT

From dawn's first hesitant light until the shadows stretch long,
You've lingered in my thoughts like a relentless steam iron,
Pressing the intricate folds of my cortex into submission,
Smoothing out the ridges where ideas once danced wild and free,
Ironing me flat, leaving me a blank expanse of unease. All through the hours, worry simmers in my veins, a slow boil,
Cooking my cells feverish, turning blood to broth of dread,
Each heartbeat a bubble rising, bursting with what-ifs and maybes,
My skin prickles with the heat of unspoken fears,
A fever that no cool cloth can tame, no remedy can quell. I pace the rooms of my mind, irritable as a storm cloud gathering,
Love, that once gentle flame, now boils over into sharp anxiety,
Scalding my edges, making me snap at shadows, curse the clock's indifferent tick,
Every minute a drop of acid etching deeper into my core,
Until the pot overflows, and I seethe with a helpless rage. Furious with you, not for your frailty or the hand that fate dealt,
But for lying there, vulnerable under the surgeon's precise blade,
A battlefield of flesh and steel, where I cannot stand guard,
Cannot shield you from the sterile chill or the whisper of risks,
My anger a mask for the terror that you'd slip away unseen. Yet beneath this fury, a quieter current runs, a river of hope,
Imagining your eyes opening to the world anew,
The iron lifted, the fever broken, our hands entwined once more,
In the aftermath, where love cools to a steady glow,
And we laugh at the wrinkles worry tried so hard to erase.