'Flash' writing anthology about chronic pain - submissions welcome!
Punch views images from the lead-lined room of hunched, misshaped bones. Punch dances round the room – head on a pole, chest iron-maiden bound with extra spikes, hips a claggy crucible, wooden knees. Mismatched red socks sneak past frozen feet, up past stiffened ankles. Punch plays St Sebastian. Punch is put to the rack — […]
I am your pain. Like Puck; quicksilver, impish, mischief-making. You’re easily fooled, you make my nonsense real, you feel what is not true. I stab and prickle, or transform into A metal straitjacket, squeezing your foot, your leg. Imprisoned. Around each toe, elastic bands pulled tight. You call me neuropathy; I say there’s no such […]
morphine tastes nasty, ive called it ‘the devil’s cough syrup’ before. it’s sickly sweet and cloying, but you know what’s Weird? when you first take that spoonful into your mouth, it’s not that bad. not great, it’s still medicine, but it’s tolerable. only when you attempt to swallow it does it make its true terribleness […]
It’s 2am and my body is on fire. Every cell is boiling. Sweat creeps from my pores. It only takes a moment to soak through my favourite t-shirt, then through the sheets and mattress covered in yellow imprints. I can’t get any fucking sleep. This happens to me every night, up to ten times. Then […]
Our minds latch to narrative, it’s how we learn, remember, interpret. I went to hospital to have a baby, I should’ve returned more, not less. Subtracted: my ability to rise, walk, move; In my pelvis, broken bone. What is the premise? What is the character’s motivation? What is the hook? That feeling: ochre, electric, waist […]
From our window, the clouds seemed static, frozen. Orange-and-green taxicabs drove through the slush six floors down. Tilly whimpered, buzzed for the nurse, asked for Dilaudid, whispered “good morning.” Swaddled in her sheets, she breathed hard. Phenolic air. She asked me how I was feeling. We lolled in our beds, our mothers asleep in their […]
Four walls, Four walls and me, Four walls a fistful of pills and me, Silence Surrounded by silence, The silence that reminds me me myself and I. Except you, You’re never silent, The voice that never stops, The endless alarm that disturbs my slumber, You rattle round my brain in whispers and shouts until I […]
I sit in my place—the patient’s chair—prepared to be a partner in my care. I’ve brought an expanding bible of medical tests and consultant notes, a list of medications and interventions, including what has worked and what hasn’t, and a diary of symptoms I now describe with familiarity. Muscles spasm in my core when I […]
I drew this while lying down in bed during a ME/CFS relapse and Fibromyalgia flare-up that has seen me housebound and sometimes bedridden. It describes the location of some of the pain in my body and how sore it feels. The image also embodies my sense of feeling trapped as a result of my disability, […]
Please do not judge me,it wasn’t my choice This illness descended, that’s what hurts the most I have worked all my life, brought up three healthy boys It has never been easy, what with clothing and toys I can cope with fatigue, as most mothers can But i took on too much, then the trouble […]