suffocates
me with its honey
suffocates
me with its gauze
like a wasp nest
like a wasp nest wrapped
around my face
I am choking
on pulp choking
on wasps choking
on stinging
I know I would drown
if I fell into water
I can no longer swim
I wet myself
this morning
warm piss streamed
down my bare legs
cocoon
is a safe place
a silky web spun
around larvae
emerge from the cocoon
transmute pain into power
I suffer
the stroke is like
a sticky
cocoon
in my mouth
I can feel
its silky
pulsing
the stroke holds
me close like a lover
the stroke smothers
me with kisses
on my throat
in my open eyes
the stroke
pinches
my tender
nipples until
they sting
Shanan Ballam survived a massive stroke in January 2022 which left her without speech and without the use of the entire right side of her body. She is the author of The Red Riding Hood Papers, Pretty Marrow, Inside the Animal: The Collected Red Riding Hood Poems, and first poems after the stroke. Her poetry has recently appeared in North American Review, I-70 Review, Sugar House Review, Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, Kaleidoscope, and The Quarter(ly).