My heart was a pond,
full of koi
beating wildly,
squirmmy and swelling and swarming upstream,
coming to rest in my throat-
hush swoosh swoosh, hush, rush, swoosh.
 
They’d skitter in,
those slippery koi,
no sense of rhythm or proper meter-
poor blameless, legless fish
unable to practice such things. 
 
Skip, skip, skip, skip, and then
like fish falling down a flight of stairs
slipskipskipboom[   ]skipboomslip[   ][   ][   ]boom[   ]skipslipskip, skip,
skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
as if there was no fish frenzy just beneath
my ribcage.

Each slippery, skipping koi
carries a sliver
of gold.

Long before my diagnoses of Lyme, Ehrlichia, Babesia, and Bartonella, my heart was trying desperately to tell me something was wrong. I, in turn, tried to tell doctor after doctor but it took 8 years before I knew what it was. Today I journeyed back in my mind, thinking about how hard I tried, how dismissed I felt,, and realizing how angry I feel... still. Today I painted my heart rate and today I imagine (and almost feel) my chest full of skittering koi, swimming wildly. I can still remember how scared I was.

We are, each of us, carrying gold with every heart beat.
Each of us.
Carrying gold.