They scatter across my skin like fiery, pale stars

In clumps as big as the sun

They come and go

So often so

You begin to feel as though their pain doesn’t matter

When the hives come

They overwhelm

They overtake

They overturn

So that nothing else compares

To the pain they give

You focus your existence on them

To live with them,

a constant pain

To not live at all,

an impossibility

that is so often hopelessly considered

The hives are not my doing

I plunge into the hot waters that resurrect them,

yes,

but it is the warm sensation that I long for

I do not want the hives

I want them away

But if the price of happiness

A happiness that is so short

Yet so needed

Is an infestation of obsessive

Unavoidable

Unprecedented

Unwanted

Fiery pale stars

Then I do not mind at all

The hives are just temporary,

after all

But so is the water

And when I finally emerge

From the warm waters that have held me safe all this time

The hives are still there

Scattered

Clumped

As if their temporary never ends