The Sphinx Withdrawal

I watch a Sphynx cat at my pet sitting job: unapologetically without fur, gentleness; wise in the way she stares at
me as though she sees the morbid
side of me, and is curious about it. Or, perhaps, she just wants treats.

I slurp my coffee and my stomach lurches. The beginnings of a stomach bug. Suds swirling the drain, the last
remnants of a bath before your body, once more, turns acrid–

My headache will form if I withdraw from my addiction now; my caffeine addled coffee cups that
Tilt towards me when I take another job, when I don’t sleep, when I need to people please. Caffeine
dependency is a thing, the way to wind you up, so that you can keep not seeing clearly. Just one more coffee, I say
to myself, a deadly torn secret, a letter sealed just for me. Just fuel me up, even when I need to rest. One more time
I’ll walk too far and for too, too long–

The fever strikes, the sphinx flicks her tail, calling me in body language. I realize that as my stomach churns, my
belly now
A sphinx itself. Pacing, restless and waiting, to see what I’ll give to it. I need to offer up something, give up my
addictions as a sacrifice. I always think I have control over my body: the breathing in and out, the flexing of my
fingers on the piano, the way my hands jitter when I shiver near the braying winter. But now, with a fever hiking
over 102 degrees– the preheating of fever, itching steadily – I realize I had no control, not once, not ever.

The sphinx takes the coffee, rejects. Keeps my pace with thumping, keeps me alive for safekeeping.

Watches me offer up tea, and toast with the crusts
Crumbled off. Accepting or deleting, depleting or carving me up for stone.

What lesson did you learn? The sphinx asks, as she hands me back a plate.
To rest, I say, with eyes half closed.
To rest. To watch the rest scatter, the blankets of snow-cracked moss we crumple underfoot, destroying their breaths
with our touch, the way each step ends up
unnamed.