my doctor tells me "there's so much we don't know"

when i taught the virus how to swim,
i lived inside a single breath for days. 
tied the hallway in a knot.
ate corn bread mix from the box.
i woke up once in the middle of the woods.
the virus had hair & a single tooth.
i followed it deep to the foot of a tree
where i tried to cut off my hands
but they kept growing back. one test claims
i am a ghost. another test suggests i will
need to have my mouth amputated.
for the final one a psychic meets me
in a parking lot. holds my hands 
& tells me, "sickness is just a state of mind."
those kinds of words get my people killed
& so i scramble away as best i can.
slept in the back seat of my car
& waited for the stink bugs to stop
playing their old punk music.
years later they are still lifting 
up my body like a stone. hefty little danger.
my fingers. my knees. there is so much
we do not know about the body.
it is more like the ocean
than i even thought. the waiting room
where i stand up & leave
deciding i need to be a dragonfly
for just today. to be gloriously unfixable.
the virus visits sometimes still.
i do not hate her like i know i should.
i tell her, "i know you were hungry."
she does not speak. sometimes comes
in the form of a bat or a bird,
other times, a centipede. we have come
to understand each other
the way predator & prey design 
ourselves as complimentary bodies.
my organs like sick pears. the virus
tells me what the doctors cannot.
she says, "you are alive. so am i." she says, 
"ask them more questions." i do even though 
i know there is so much they do not know. 
we end up talking about cranes.
both the birds & the lifts. 
the doctor asks me if 
i've ever tried to cut off my hands.
this is where i lie.