How I Will Become A Sun

I understand now
what has been happening to me
over these last months.

My hands and feet work
as they always have but feel
stiff and needle-filled, oddly
dry when they are wet, 
chilled and dripping
though I stand on dry carpet.
I have stopped trusting them.

Whether I encounter 
once-beloved faces in person
or in newspapers lying
in the street, they all seem
gray and obsolete and 
I have stopped trusting them.

I lie often on the couch
ranting into cups of weak coffee
as days have become weeks
have become months.

I have stopped counting down
to birthdays, holidays, and
other special occasions.
I have stopped trusting them 
for anything more than 
betrayals of my hope
and memory.

I have squeezed all this
into my core and pressed it 
hard into a ball and felt it
become a fusion bomb
and spread its heat
into all my limbs.

Soon to follow?
A blinding light
as I burst from within.
This is how I will 
become at last a sun. 
There will be only burning 
where I once stood.
That is one thing
in which I still trust.