Borderline

Plasmodium
I have been with you since before you were even you
before you climbed out of the trees
and walked upright
Incubated in the most perfectly evolved creature
this side of the cockroach
Mosquitoes, my apostles
everywhere there is water
complex and mobile
have countless substrains
there are 50,000 of me in the space
the size of a period
Call me parasite
malarial carrier
I killed Alexander the Great
the Egyptian mummies carry my scars
I surrounded Rome
shielding Caesar from his enemies
Brought to the Americas
where I slaughtered American Indians
Africans who were resistant to me were then brought
centuries later I now kill Africans in their homeland
I have mentally scarred nearly every child in Africa
kill one of them every thirty seconds
Call me irony is disease form
Motherfuck your Cortez
your Jamestown
all your wars
Smallpox and Syphilis were just accessories
Call me Columbian Exchange
You dredged me from your English swamps
So Cornwallis and his troops fell
and you got to have an American Revolution
my death toll in the Pacific
outnumbered combat fatalities
I do not discriminate
Your blood is all the same to me
Call me insatiable
bring me your Quinine
potent but toxic
your Atabrine, your Chlorquine
feed me your antibiotics
I will mutate past them
Bring me your mosquito nets
your Gates-Clinton-Bono  money
The CDC was founded to combat me
Spray me with DDT
I am your true Silent Spring
Can stab at you for years
or kill you in under a day
Bring me your vaccine attempts
I will be just out of reach
waiting to steal your grandchildren
Call me immortal
epidemiologists call me “genius”
Your AIDs epidemic is just a means to an end
I will most likely provide
Relearn Latin so you can call me
by my scientific names:
Plasmodius Vivax, falciparum
Call me God
You religions have nothing on me
I am the only God you can prove actually exists
the only real deity you have
Pray at my alter
my apostles will find you
drawn by your every carbon exhale
the constant holy rhythm of flutter, suck, smack
feel the burn of me in your veins
cough, spit, bleed
die for me
I am the blood smear of your final moments
How long do you think
you can hold your breath?