But Muscles I Love

No, I am not Schwarzenegger
I was never Mister Universe
never debuted on the WWF,
but muscles I love.

I was not the derelict body,
in the Body Works™
plastination exhibit,
but muscles I love.

50 souls out of a million
won the lottery of rare,
a disease of this type
muscles destroyed by friendly fire,
discharges of bombs and rockets,
the artillery of cellular proportions
but muscles I love.

Leery souls bear the disease
with daily micro-injuries,
humbling our spirits,
questioning our next move:
a cane, a wheelchair, a golden chair
downhill from there,
but muscles I love.

Inside the flesh, deep in the Z-fibers
where those ex-vivo experiments take place,
a needle pushes inside you
bringing a morsel of a muscle,
observing through a microscope,
Congo-red stained vacuoles,
a Kosovar field of debris,
but muscles I love.

Fat cell tycoons are invading
inside the fascia, the neighborhood is changing
boarded-up fibers taken up by adipose gentrification,
but muscles I love.

III

Inclusion Body Myositis
the fight against the machine
inside your body of water, salt, calcium
and the last hope of a cure,
but muscles I love.

Your body kills
there are natural killer cells
trained at the Thymus Institute
antibodies against muscle
autophagy in the killing fields
mitochondria lighting off,
but muscles I love.

Quadriceps, four times worse than soleus
no longer rising from chairs,
nor hiking the ways of the pilgrims,
Falling, rising, dropping, choking,
climbing the snail stairs to heaven,
but muscles I love.

Every day
out of bed, into the world
my thin muscles are with me
part of the time, out in fatigues
I count my steps
careful not to fall
ever so grateful,

But muscles I love

[zombify_post]