"What if Parkinson's was..."

What if Parkinson’s was a disease of lang-g-g-g,

my words would cut off abruptly, unsettled…

I would hear my softest “I love you” clang

like a rock against metal.

I would have to remind myself to write,

as if the action itself was not recursive,

as if muscle memory didn’t learn each night

how to move in cursive…

Flailing fingertips would strike on the keyboard keys

at random, haphazardly and chaotically,

like, “do as you please….”

but strictly mathematically

nothing would add up

or rather,

words would collide, pile up at the period’s stop,

and spill over, farther.

I would get lost in my train of thought…

the last train I caught…

under strain, stretched taut…

all of this pain… for what?....

And the line would quickly tie itself into knots

and tongue-tied, I’d lie in the bedroom gloom

and the rhymes would squeeze in-between the slots

of the window blinds and fill up the room.

And I’d search for words to express myself

to express myself (from myself) to the final crumb

and the page - my cell -

would absorb me whole... but stay deaf and dumb.