Translating Chronic Pain: Moments and Fragments

'Flash' writing anthology about chronic pain - submissions welcome!

Tag: body (Page 5 of 7)

‘In Stillness’, by D. Phoenix

March 16, 2018 /

The way the scent of the air changes as the day goes on: the warming sweetness of morning; the sharp resin of fir trees as the sun heats the day; the cool, soft evening air with the ground and lake and all the waving leaves mixed in. The way the early evening light strikes the birches and makes them chiaroscuro dramatic. The way my feet burn. The smudged charcoal underbellies of terns over the green water. Their sliding paths through the air. This deep, stabbing pain in both temples. The buzzing flight of sugar-fuelled hummingbirds. The way my entire body is filled with pain and unable to move from this chair. Heavily, here, just so. That bird, there, hopping from branch to branch. Almost hidden. The feel of my skin as a gentle breeze touches the side of my face. The things I long to do. That dragonfly, there, and the sun behind its wings. Every dancing leaf. The air again: changing.

  • by D. Phoenix

Canada

‘First and Last’, by Michele Leavitt

March 15, 2018 /

If pleasure is the absence of pain, 
then pain comes first.

In the planter outside my front door, 
a wren’s nest whorls down 

to darkness. The nestlings chirr when I pass by, 
or when the wind’s fingers brush too close, 

as if the wind and I are mothers, 
returning with meat, as if refreshed

sensation means relief from pain, 
meaning pain comes last – 

like a shadow, sleek and well-fed, 
or a body’s imprint in the bed. 
I grow to love you, dear familiar.

 

United States

‘The Pits of Pain’, by Katarina Juvancic

March 14, 2018 /

For some of us the universe is a dark pit, where pain finds its home, nesting and laying eggs of destruction. The whole life reduced to this crumbled, shrank, shelled body of pain. It takes over your whole existence. Nothing can keep the pain at bay at this point, not even your best “mind-over-matter” efforts or hardest of drugs. It is torturing your soul and crippling your body. Overwhelming and ubiquitous. An epitome of Alone. A hungry demon. 

It claims you when you are too exhausted to fight. Now it has me in its claws, roaring like a wild beast, feasting on my bones, chewing my sanity and spitting out my dignity. I am too weak to resist. My presence is ethereal and fragile. I am not really here any more. I do not live anymore. I merely exist. And that is more humiliating and dehumanising than being dead.

 

Slovenia

‘EMBRACING THE DIS-EASE, DIS-ORDER AND CHAOS’, by Katarina Juvancic

March 13, 2018 /

Disease is a discord, friction, dissonance, a flatted fifth every righteous composer wants to avoid, but hearing it in music it makes the tune much more interesting and edgy.

So, no, I don’t really believe in controlling or managing a disease as something external, as a bank account, or as a puppy that needs to be trained to fetch, sit and bark whenever you think it’s appropriate; or a dissonant chord that needs to be rewritten so that a tune can sound neat again.
What I believe you can do is try to understand it, understand yourself and your disease without being intimidated by the managerial narrative, economic discourse or regimen requirements. Embrace it as a part of you that needs to be heard, and healed. And dance to its tune, even if others can’t hear music in this messy noise, and even if your back is stiff as hell.

 

Slovenia

‘LIVE YOUR STORY’, by Katarina Juvancic

March 13, 2018 /

Maybe me still being here is as random as someone else dying. Maybe my decisions and actions only worked for me and cannot be replicated by anyone else. I honestly don’t know. My mind is dwarfed by life’s mysterious ways. … All I know for certain is that as much as I would like to live in a cancer-free world and help anyone who is struggling with the disease, all I can really do is to share my story. 

That is all I have to offer. A story. My story. And I would suggest that rather than copying mine or anyone else’s, make sure you’re comfortable with yours. Feel it. Articulate it. Own it. Live it. No matter how shitty you think it is. Because ultimately your story is the only thing that can and WILL help you deal with both – life and the loss of it.

Slovenia

 

‘Fibromyalgia’, by Zara Carpenter

March 12, 2018 /

Fibromyalgia 
My body drinks in the harsh cold of winter 
Setting my bones on fire

Hands ball up into blotched white fists 
Suddenly and viciously 
A message travels down
 
My over over sensitive nerves

Sending fingers shooting out

Dead straight

Rigor morticed with pain

Liquid churns hot in my spasming bowels 
Limp sprinting to the bathroom

I watch through open legs

As blood drips into the toilet bowl

A crimson red rose blooms

Then slowly dissolves

I am a clockwork toy

Wound too tight

The obsessions I tidied away

Are coming out of their boxes

Quicker than a child’s presents at Christmas

 

  • by Zara Carpenter

www.zaracarpenter.com

United Kingdom

‘The Velocity of Pain’, by Sonya Huber

March 11, 2018 /

I lie on the couch, but you cannot see my velocity. I have a tangential vectoring sense that pain is coiled mitochondrial speed, that while I am prone I am riding the rails deep into the future and the past at once, as if pain exposes ruptures in the time/space continuum and pulls me into the openings, as if a body at rest in pain is a body in motion through time rather than space. There is a sense of pressure on my skin as the force of time’s ungluing. There is a sense of coiled mathematical work and a formula connecting time to pain through space as I leave my location on the timeline and descend into time’s scaffolding. I am quantum, visible in two places at once. The electrons vibrate with pain, which is the pressure of the universe, the music of the planets.


United States

‘Singing Bones’, by Katarina Juvancic

March 9, 2018 /
 Deeply submerged in the melancholy of the dying summer with my knees telling tales of the approaching cold and winter. My bones, surrounded with tumor necrosis cytokines causing acute and debilitating inflammation are dreading it. 

 

 This picture symbolises hope (sun) in the midst of winter. Trees are like bones.  

My body is a place of pain. My body is also a place of unutterable solitude, longing, and love. Love holding my cells in place. Love feeding them and helping them communicate better. I must find that place every time the system that keeps them in check collapses. I must remember it is here, all the time, ubiquitous and ever present. 
I need to embrace my disease and live with it as best as I possibly can. 
But most of all, I need to find a sustainable source of warmth and store it into my bones, so that they can sing songs of sun, warm breeze and golden evenings like this one all year round.

Slovenia

‘SHARING VULNERABILITY THROUGH OUR STORIES’, by Katarina Juvancic

March 9, 2018 /

I went to see occupational therapist today, as I am having troubles with my daily chores.

She asked some challenging stuff and burst into tears when I talked about my medical past. Then she told me her most intimate and painful story. I held her hand and we shared a beautiful moment of vulnerability together. Two women who have never met before and should conduct the conversation in a strictly professional, clinical manner, holding hands and crying. 
I told her how precious it feels to be able to share our stories, to treat each other’s broken pieces with understanding, respect and dignity.


Then she put some bandages on my hands and taught me how to stand, how to sit and how to bend. She welcomed me softly into my new reality where little mundane things carry huge meanings. Today I feel I’ve finally put my life vest on.

– by Katarina Juvancic

Website

Slovenia

‘A Hidden Truth’, by Amy Hunter

March 4, 2018 /

After struggling with ear problems all my life and having two surgeries for Cholesteatoma in 2008 and 2015, a recent flare up has caused months of pain that is unexplained and has baffled my consultants. Having this on top of my original ear problems and cluster headaches sometimes the pain can make days difficult. This is just a glimpse into what happens on a daily basis. 

Me. Pain. Intertwined. 
Days. Coping. Bad days. Flare ups. 
People. Confused. Understanding Difficult. 
Hidden disease. 

Medicine. No effect. Doctors. Befuddled. 
Decisions. Hospitals. Waiting. Pain. 
Hidden disease. 

Explaining. Constant. Tiring. 
Symptoms. Unexplained. Words. Lost. 

Hidden disease. 

Tired. Exasperated. Threshold. Pushed. Sometimes. Beyond Limits.
Tired. Sore. Always. Hidden Truth. 
Tired. Battle on. 

Hidden disease. 

People. Unconditional Love. 
Caring. Trying to understand. 

Hidden disease. 

Pain. Intertwined. 
Always there.
Nothing seen. 

Hidden disease. 

This is me.

 

  • by Amy Hunter

 

United Kingdom

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