"afflicted"

I have been afflicted

since the time passed

when I left that safe abyss

to enter into a new world;

ambiguity is my plague

and disease is my weapon of choice,

they regarded me as other

yet not quite othered,

an outcast of sorts

with marked flesh

and a smile of lies

that penetrated much deeper

than a golden heart could show-

I romanticize the thing that almost killed me,

I sometimes wish the word disease

was more specific,

what does it mean

and why am I the

afflicted one?