I am in the centre of nothing. Nothing cushions me. Nothing protects me I am comfortable surrounded by nothing Nothing is nice and kind and gentle. I am nobody in nothing I am special in nothing Nothing matters in nothing Nothing is everything I am nothing Nothing touches me I touch nothing Nothing moves me… Continue Reading ‘Nothing’, by Una Sombra
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A rookery, long abandoned now, had been built inside my body. I don’t know where the birds went or why, one day, they uninhabited, leaving only their barbed-wire residues, strung across the boughs of my hips; all sticks and spit, all hollows meant for holding something small, still desperately alive. I’m sorry – I’m afraid … Continue Reading ‘The Diagnosis’, by Roseanne Watt
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I flirt with my itch. By turns it niggles, seduces, pesters; as it gapes, festers, I reach down, don’t dare to look, rip legs to shreds with nails, shorn short (but not short enough); viscous red smeared across my calf, warm to touch. I suppurate for art; as if sawed in half, shriek a pain.… Continue Reading ‘Seczema’ by Isabel White
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The television I bought five years ago sits in the corner of my room. It helped me through those morphine nights where my lung drain, like a sick umbilical cord snagged from my side. I would watch Countdown at 3 a.m., clasping the puppetry of sign language like a charm. by Jacqueline Woods Write… Continue Reading ‘When the stars threw down their spears’, by Jacqueline Woods
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It wouldn’t be fair to say the ache starts every morning as I wake. Or truthfully that I wake at all, more I become conscious… of the pain. The fire started small and young. Fickle flickering up my spine. Across my shoulders like a seasoned log, spreading further, faster as I age. It took hold.… Continue Reading ‘The Ache’, by Kitty Frilling
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When he was dying, I swallowed a CoCodamol before bedtime as if it were hot chocolate. I craftily attributed my zen-like calm in the face of helping Dad as he pissed blood into a plastic pot at 3am – I don’t know what’s happening to me, he said, again and again – to my sensible… Continue Reading ‘The Night Shift’, by Libby R.
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Work as hard as you can for as long as you can Then you’re ill can’t work can’t walk can’t bear talk or remember how no pain felt can count on the hand you can’t lift your friends and family can’t work or provide can’t afford pride or holidays you manage Christmas, on plastic can’t… Continue Reading ‘The Cost of Falling Ill’, by Linda Cosgriff
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M.E. destroys one life and ruins more. Fatigue replaces rage. Accept it. by Linda Cosgriff Author website United Kingdom
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A man is ill. Whispered recollections of what he once was are all that sustain him. He has no hope. His aching visions of what should have been kill comfort. What could have been is a lie. He has no hope. He has no future. He has only now. Life took revenge for a life… Continue Reading ‘A Double Etheree on Living with M.E.’, by Linda Cosgriff
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Pain stitched into each joint, he withers and fades. A mutilated life. by Linda Cosgriff Author website United Kingdom
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