the paint blisters as
the room burns all around me
i feel the heat
watching the flames
consume the ceiling
listlessly waiting for
it all to come crashing
down upon me in
a torrent of ashen embers
unable to differentiate
if the inferno originated
in the fever coursing
through paperthin walls
or my own tattered disaster

a relapse of illness strikes
as the timbers roar
blue tongues of flame
in a lethargy of third
degree burns as time falls
backward into a mire of
indistinguishable torments
the fallible nature of
dream in the exposed beams
an impassive storm filled
with stinging motes of fire
a sheen of sweaty denials
as my body is reduced to
a soot stain approximation
of a fool in fiery torments