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

Tag: connection (Page 1 of 2)

‘Too’, by RachDoesDesign

The image features a form with chaotic hair spanning the entirety of the piece, lines and dots show the chaos of the mind

Too young to understand,
Too scared to stay

 

  • by RachDoesDesign

 

Wales

[The image features a form with chaotic hair spanning the entirety of the piece, lines and dots show the chaos of the mind]

‘i am the most selfish person ever’ by socks

i often say i wouldnt wish this disease on my worst enemy. i wouldnt. no one deserves this. but i am so glad you understand, that i am not Alone… i wouldnt wish this on my worst enemy, so Why am I glad my best friend has it? i am the worlds biggest hypocrite…

 

  • by socks

England

‘hey Leah’ by socks

hey Leah ive been worried about you. theres this site i want you to see, ive been putting poems on there about chronic pain. you dont have to do this alone.

 

  • by socks

England

‘Superheroes in PJs’, by Grae Salisbury

This is shocking.

 

              I am not an object and I am not broken but

                                          the pain tells me differently.

 

This is chronic.

              Why am I not adjusted yet?

 

It comes and goes, it’s all my consciousness

                                                        or

                                          all I want is to lie down.

 

And when I come into work I lie about my days off.

 

Why do I look tired? Maybe,

              that’s just how I look. Maybe,

              they think I am just not very ‘together’…

 

This invisible pain cannot be talked about because that will only make work relations worse-

because they never know how to interact with me after, but

                            my anxiety aches like the bits between my legs.

 

I am not used to this.

 

I am managing well and privately proud, but sometimes

 

              I wish they all knew.

 

I guess all superheroes probably feel like this sometimes.

 

              I bet there’s a lot of us.

 

 

  • by Grae Salisbury

Canada
Instagram:  @jellybeancomix

‘The Day That Never Ends’, by Mariana Gurgis

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 wooden chairs, wrapped in winter coats, their heads dangling crooked.

Tilly and I began our daily walk—we could only ever circle the floor twice. We linked arms, dragged IV poles with our free hands. The hospital hallway was long, off-white, off-world, a nearly invisible trail of half-existence. Fluorescent light faked endless daytime. Supposedly, there is also no night in heaven. With every step, that sorry tube stabbed me deeper in the gut like a helpless thief. Blood drained downward into a bag wrapped around my knee. My insides, bared to all who passed by.

 

  • by Mariana Gurgis

Canada

 

‘Helplessness’, by @simonsalento

Helplessness. It’s worse for me you know. You are only suffering but you do that every day. But every day I wake up and with the reddened sky I know that I can never help you. Hopelessness. It’s worse for me. You can imagine a cure or some relief though you know – you know – that that will never come. All I want is for your pain to go away for ever. And you know please know that’s not the same as not wanting you here forever. Look into my eyes, please look into my eyes and please, please don’t show me pity.

  • by @simonsalento

 

‘The Velocity of Pain’, by Sonya Huber

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 the openings, as if a body at rest in pain is a body in motion through time rather than space. There is a sense of pressure on my skin as the force of time’s ungluing. There is a sense of coiled mathematical work and a formula connecting time to pain through space as I leave my location on the timeline and descend into time’s scaffolding. I am quantum, visible in two places at once. The electrons vibrate with pain, which is the pressure of the universe, the music of the planets.


United States

‘SHARING VULNERABILITY THROUGH OUR STORIES’, by Katarina Juvancic

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. Two women who have never met before and should conduct the conversation in a strictly professional, clinical manner, holding hands and crying. 
I told her how precious it feels to be able to share our stories, to treat each other’s broken pieces with understanding, respect and dignity.


Then she put some bandages on my hands and taught me how to stand, how to sit and how to bend. She welcomed me softly into my new reality where little mundane things carry huge meanings. Today I feel I’ve finally put my life vest on.

– by Katarina Juvancic

Website

Slovenia

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