To be ill is to fall silent to forsake firm designs grow motionless unearth a thicket of the mind pitch into the teeming pond within its woodlands. To be ill is to be a ghost unseen by others amidst the tangle. As you lay your face upon a pillow, illness evaporates the future one moment at a time. To be ill is to soften to follow the tenuous vine through the chaff to the wellspring in the bramble to know quaking entertain rage barter with death to glimpse courage in the golden canopy. To be ill is to battle until the mysteries of mortality crack you open spilling your softness upon the world.