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

Tag: connection (Page 2 of 2)

‘Hagalaz’, by Ruth V. Chalkley

In Lithuanian, runoti means both “to cut (with a knife)” and “to speak”.

      Hail: Hagalaz
      Pain, loss, suffering, hardship, sickness, crisis.

       Spirit-breaker
       Faith-Taker
       Misery-Maker
       Joy-Stealer
       Dream-Breaker
       Shadow-Hound.    

       Thought-Waker
       Friend-Fooler
       Life-Dealer
       Mood-Carver
       Time-Stealer
       Life-Hider.

        Sometimes, some time,
        Signal-Saver.

 

U.K.

‘Outside In’, by Kendra Preston Leonard

The snow and salt on your coat
suggests that you’ve been outside
shoveling, maybe, or 
tossing snowballs for the dogs.

But in fact it’s the dogs who have
brought the snow and salt inside,
flinging it onto your coat
when they shake it away.

Your coat hangs on the back of a chair
and you haven’t been out all day.
You’ve been mostly in bed because of the 
new and unfamiliar but not
unexpected pain in your hip,
Another joint your illness
is colonizing in your body.

You can only watch the dogs
play in the snow,
young pups again,
their own bodies slowing even faster than yours.

Black dogs,
white snow,
white snow,
red counterpane,
the outside in
where you can 
be in it.

 

‘Defining Me’, by Shanali Perera

 

I stumble
I fall
I break
I mend
I get back upI keep stumbling
I keep falling
I keep breaking
I struggle to get back up
I listen…I feel pain
I burn
I weep
I scream
I listen….I lose sight
I lose control
I lose meI ask myself
Who I,
Want me to be?
Need me to be?
Make me to be? 
The black line drawing is showing a person trying to sit up straight from a bent over position. It looks a cross section of a person seated, taken from the side. The straightening up of the upper body is shown in 3 moving positions along with the heads, while the lower body remains as one, in the seated position. The main is black but there are orange, red and blue lines used to draw the lower back, hip, knee and leg. concentric rings of black lines are used at the hip and knee joints as well to draw the heads."

I struggle
I adapt
I alter
I shift
I cope
I listen

I define me
I defy being defined by illness

I the author
I the architect
I the enforcer of my life journey
Define Me

I find me again

I see me now
Do you see me?

 

‘The exorcism of Spasmodic Torticollis’, by Holly Hirst

‘This is my best exorcist impression,’ I tell you with a grimacing grin.

I tell you it’s a horror movie to make you laugh. So that you can laugh at the girl controlled by demons. As her head turns full circle on her neck. As her smile screams with silent blasphemy. Because if you don’t laugh, you turn away. You’ll never follow Karras through the window. You’ll turn and walk downstairs, sit with Chris and hope it goes away.

 

  • by Holly Hirst

U.K.

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