Now as much as I love, love, love someone else doing the dishes and fretting about dinner, the trade-off of viral bronchitis—so not worth it!

Seems some nasty bug is circulating the state, well at least this town. Watch out for the attack. Not fun in the least.

Picture red plastic cup marked “phlegm” and me in blue medical mask, and endless hacking. Fever seems to have FINALLY subsided; at least I no longer ache in places I didn’t know existed. And the paranoid thoughts of being the very first person to die of the new viral outbreak, set to kill 10% of the population, have stopped. At least for the most part.

Still I’m left rib-bruised, out of breath, and wondering what happened during the month of September, beyond what I learned from season eight of Grey’s Anatomy and seasons one through eight (yes, eight seasons) of Everybody Loves Raymond.

The good news is I’m in love! Yes. I am. His name is Robert.

He is a fictional character on the show Everybody Loves Raymond, a very tall, insecure Italian who is just one giant adorable bear. Though I realize the episodes are over a decade old (and therefore Robert is in his fifties now), and that Robert is fictional, and thusly doesn’t really exist, I am in love nonetheless. He’s more attainable than the young wealthy god-like creature in the Shades of Grey series anyhow.

When I was having fever dreams, during the early stages of my illness, my dreams were related to the fictional character Robert, (or to dimensional time travel during the era of futuristic war-ridden earth). I didn’t dream of Robert. I dreamt his dreams. Yes, indeed, in my fever-state I believed I was Robert. After over 100 episodes I imagine our minds had molded together in someway. As Robert, I dreamt as Robert, and had dreams about his circumstances that befell him while on the show. Yes, I had fictional character anxiety dreams. Who would have thought that was even possible?

Dreaming I was Robert was far better than the jumping from one dimension to the next dimension dreams, to recruit and “save” people who would make good warriors back on earth for the alien battle we’d soon be fighting. There was a sophisticated screening mechanism for determining what individuals were suitable to be pretty much kidnapped from their dimension and brought back to ours. Basically, if your life sucked, and probably would continue to suck, or lead to early death, or harm to others, we stole you. Nice mind I have. Don’t you think?

So that’s what I do when I’m sick: Watch lots of television, obsess about all the feasible ways of expiring, kidnap people in other dimensions, and fall in love with fictional characters. Probably not too far off the mainstream. That and write poetry—when the head’s not pounding and I’m not catching phlegm in a cup.

~~~~~

Love Leaves

I shall not tread

Into thy dark night

A cornucopia of lost cause

Landscape stripped barren

By voice of horned trumpet

Melody suffocated by circumstance

Mind bled out by tourniquet expired

Whistle blown at ruptured drum

Bleakness wrapped as toy for infant

Revealed broken, rusted blade

When torn

Open, his tangled mane made web of longing

Prepped and fondued to tempt desire

Lion’s thirst, a churning ache

Thick swallowed whole

Harbored

A chest plate of veins, pulsing blue

Tulips turned stone

Roots in mire

Crushed sweet

Gone

Sour echo vines and chokes

Stiffens in eradication

Layers thick upon cake of earth

Stomped brittle leaves remain

Rocked forth

In cradle of you

~ Sam Craft, Sept. 2012

~~~~~

 

Love Enters

Love enters

Starlit glow aflame

Beauty infinite

Whispers honey

Recognition formed

Beyond womb

Of mother’s promise

As feather set upon chariot wind

I move within your substance

The sound of songbirds assembles

Lullaby of cherubs

And silence

He knows not

How to exist

When I am filled

With your beckoning

~ Sam Craft, Sept 2012

 

 

And this video Explains Exactly How I felt during my illness