Article Text
Poetry and prose
Poem
The master thief
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His came from the inside.
One of his own turned.
Insidious at first
Subtle, and easy to disregard.
Unseen, it was stealing
Stealing balance
Stealing deglutition
Stealing memory
Forcing attention to its ravage
No longer able to ignore
It wanted
Everything.
But not a complaint was uttered
Not an angry word said
As energy dwindled
Movements labored
Independence abandoned
And the steadfast body could no longer be relied upon.
Stolen by the Master Thief.
Though It took so much
It could not win.
Courage –
the rarest kind.
Unfaltering.
The body. Succumbed.
The spirit. Impenetrable.
Footnotes
Competing interests None.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.