Muhereza Rodgers Roger Poet Free verse

Fever Without Fever

It begins as a whisper in the bones—
not pain, not quite illness,
but a slow unthreading of strength,
as though the night forgot to finish me.

My limbs carry a borrowed weight,
each step a quiet argument with gravity,
and the morning light feels too loud,
too sharp for eyes that never truly closed.

There is a chill, though no wind passes,
a heaviness beneath the skin—
like a body rehearsing sickness
without committing to its name.

Even breath arrives late,
dragged through a chest that hesitates,
and the soul itself feels thinned,
stretched between waking and undoing.

I move, but not fully—
as if part of me remains behind,
folded in the creases of a restless night,
unwilling to rise with the rest.

And yet—
this frailty is familiar.

It is the same trembling
that comes when I think of you too long,
when absence leans too close to touch,
and longing forgets its boundaries.

Love, in waiting, does this—
it hollows and fills at once,
turns the body into a question
the heart cannot stop asking.

I ache in places no fever finds,
grow weak in ways no rest repairs,
because desire has its own exhaustion,
and hope, its own quiet burn.

So I walk through days half-lit,
carrying this gentle collapse within me—
not sick, not whole,
but suspended in the tender fatigue of wanting.

And if I seem fragile,
if my voice softens or my steps slow—
it is not sleep I lack alone,

it is you.

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