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… Continue Reading ‘First and Last’, by Michele Leavitt
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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… Continue Reading ‘The Pits of Pain’, by Katarina Juvancic
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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… Continue Reading ‘EMBRACING THE DIS-EASE, DIS-ORDER AND CHAOS’, by Katarina Juvancic
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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… Continue Reading ‘LIVE YOUR STORY’, by Katarina Juvancic
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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… Continue Reading ‘Fibromyalgia’, by Zara Carpenter
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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… Continue Reading ‘The Velocity of Pain’, by Sonya Huber
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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. My body is a place of pain. My body is also a place of unutterable solitude, longing, and… Continue Reading ‘Singing Bones’, by Katarina Juvancic
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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.… Continue Reading ‘SHARING VULNERABILITY THROUGH OUR STORIES’, by Katarina Juvancic
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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… Continue Reading ‘A Hidden Truth’, by Amy Hunter
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An afternoon spent, or was it an evening, or three, in a wheel clamp’s tender clasp. My dues for modernist mutation paid out in full: ribs, calves, hands, sections of skull, wrenching, arching, hardening. A homecoming of sorts, a holding; mattress won’t grumble, neither will I – if only we knew if we’re hot or… Continue Reading ‘Mutation’, by Marion Michell
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