Tag: hardship (Page 3 of 3)

‘Occam’s Hammer’, by Garry Coulthard

February 9, 2018 / Sara Wasson

No one talks about Occam’s other idea,
the hammer,
when his razor didn’t cut deep enough,
his hammer smashed down.

‘Of an event occurring, it is most likely that the simplest one is the correct one’
‘Of an inevitability occurring, the one that hurts the most is the correct one’

When Occam’s hammer falls,
it’s not a matter of when or where it lands,
it’s simply a matter of how hard it hits,
and if this time you choose to scream.

by Garry Coulthard

‘Food for Thought’, by Ryan Michael Dumas

February 8, 2018 / Sara Wasson

Just got a letter from disability insurance: Denied. I’m not disabled enough to get anything. After months of trying to convince them.

How do you prove you can’t work?

I cannot sit up, stand, or walk hardly at all. There is no job I can do while laying down, without having to make phone calls.

Just laying here, my back aches. But it’s the most comfortable position I can find. (It hurts my hips but those aren’t important.)

If I dared to sit up, my lower and upper back would scream in agony. It would not end until I laid back down.

I couldn’t keep working; had to move back in with my toxic parents. I have no money, no freedom, and no chance. I have no future. And that terrifies me.

I’m a survivor. The world wants me dead. It’s only a matter of time.

by Ryan Michael Dumas

My tumblr

‘Defining Me’, by Shanali Perera

February 6, 2018 / Sara Wasson

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?

by Shanali Perera Author website
U.K.

‘Ray’, by Philip Brennan

February 6, 2018 / Sara Wasson

His hand closed up over the stretch of five years, and stayed like that till he passed. First the pinkie, as if winched towards the palm by an invisible string, and then the ring finger went, till his hand was frozen stiff like a claw. It was like it had slowly snapped shut, sixty years late for the butterflies we’d chased in Parson’s field. It was no worry to him, he chuckled, his pipe still fit between his fingers.

by Philip Brennan