Translating Chronic Pain: Moments and Fragments

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

Tag: time (Page 1 of 3)

‘Night shift’, by SpinalPain

November 15, 2019 /

Welcome to my evening. I would love to simply kiss my husband goodnight and doze off. TURN OVER, I have taken my evening medication, all six of them. TURN OVER. My husband starts his evening purrs, just his rhythmic tiger sounds use to aid me to slumber. TURN OVER. No more can I find that useful vessel called sleep. TURN OVER My glass is no longer half full, there is no glass at all. TURN OVER. The TV is on very low but to me it’s screaming, TURN OVER. Its now wintertime and I have only a cotton sheet on me and heat is emitting from all my pores, TURN OVER. TV off and say my prayers please Lord flick this switch that screams my pain, let my strength in you regain. TURN OVER. It must be 3am now and still no sleep, maybe in the next hour…

 

  • by SpinalPain

    UK

‘Superheroes in PJs’, by Grae Salisbury

March 2, 2019 /

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

‘Flare*’, by amymillios.blog

September 28, 2018 /

I’ve slept through Christmas. I shiver and pull the covers over me; sweat, and throw the covers off. My head bobs with nausea as I hobble to the bathroom to pee. The cats stay away, though at some point I hear them sliding across the living room floor, chasing that knitted ball with the bell.  They sound far away.  I sink into scalding bathwater—steam rising around me, my skin red—but it doesn’t feel anywhere near hot enough.  I eat a deviled egg. Hear the glass of seltzer fizzing on my nightstand as I turn onto my right hip to relieve my left.  Awake time for the day: 45 minutes. Sleep time: 20 hours. In-between these two: three hours of semi-comatose wondering, wondering if I’ll ever get back a bit of the life I once had.

*from “Sick Notes: The Story Inside the Illness: Memoir Meets Case Study”

 

  • by amymilios.blog

 

Link to Master’s Thesis on ProQuest

 

United States

‘The hook’, by Sarah Sasson

September 20, 2018 /

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 down.

The hook is me on the edge of my bed, listening for my baby.

My doctor: you will probably heal 

what if I don’t

things that were part of me: walking, laughing, being in ocean.

My editor draws lines through this section. 
[The pacing is slow, nothing happens]

Days are triangles between the bed, the couch, the bathroom. 
Pain tethers me; a dog on a rope.

I’m on the bed trying to stand, the collar pulls my neck
to breathe or growl
I watch from the other side of the room how I’m changed.

  • by Sarah Sasson

WordPress:  https://sarahsassonblog.wordpress.com/

United Kingdom

‘The Day That Never Ends’, by Mariana Gurgis

September 20, 2018 /

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

 

‘The Break of Day’, by Jacqueline Woods

August 26, 2018 /

Pain paralyses. 
It hurts too much to move,
to unlock, unhinge my joints,
put pressure on my tender limbs.

I will wait for my Carer: 
my lover, my friend,
who will lift me from my bed,
magnificently.

My arms encircle his neck
as I breathe in the salty sunshine
of his skin, pressing my lips against
the cool ripple of his shoulder blade.

He carries me to a bathroom
of sunken marble and satin cushions, 
a garland of candles guides our way,
I am Ophelia light: baptised, reborn.

His devotion will wash 
the wounds of night away,
unclench the claws which trap
my dreams.

I will bathe in his tenderness:
my twisted hands and swollen knees
brave and beautiful
in his eyes.

All will be well
when he arrives.

 

UK

‘Shooting stars’, by Marion Michell

May 11, 2018 /

Worst days pain ricochets like shooting stars with pinball crushes. Oh the love! Releases fiery goo when ramming rib, tooth, bone. Skull reels alone; body razed by frequent flyer flares, flags pushed here there, declaring consternation zones. Each smart begets another, emulates, and brass bands march in new-laid grooves, playing their loudest, most discordant tunes. Strangely breasts score synchronicity, pressed hard against the faces of two grinning clocks (hands colliding, clouding time). Neither words nor image until pacified.

  • by Marion Michell

Blog https://supinesublime.wordpress.com
Book SUPINELY SUBLIMELY 

UK

‘NIGHT SWEATS’, by Blair James

May 11, 2018 /

you sit in my throat like a stone in shoe 

eyes dry as bone. bones hurt. 

why cry? 

these days that feel different but all so same. 

little belly wrenches all the time as though to be freed from something 

tonsils i should rip them from my neck. daft neck 

neck forever stiff 

but why should neck feel at ease when i remain so needlessly static 

lose my reasons every day 

and think of new 

you div 

ask yourself what time it is. what day 

become like a teddy bear. 

apples hurt my mouth but i still eat them. 

how life is unfair. 

why must i scratch my skin? 

not fair on you 

to have everything 

daffodils. i used to kick their heads off. weak. 

it follows me round everywhere. 

what’s the point in being alive when you’re dead 

how can you sleep when you’re wet 

wet

  • by Blair James

United Kingdom

 

‘Poor Growing Season’, by Miranda Cichy

May 11, 2018 /

 

 

  • by Miranda Cichy

 

The year I grew tomatoes 
I had no understanding 
that my body was failing, 
how the plants needed 
more earth than I could give them,
out in the yard
on a concrete bed, 
hunkered in pots 
the size of my skull. I 
fed them too early, I
forgot to pierce
the container holes
and June drowned them.
You can try too hard
to care for something,
and I watched through 
the dusty window
as the summer shifted,
as my body took 
a spade to itself, dug 
and re-dug, broke 
roots until the soil was raw. 
Good days unfurl 
in bad years
like yellow flowers, sometimes 
the fruit does set. But
the tomatoes I picked
were swollen, their faces
multiplied, the seeds like grit,
stems bending from the sticks 
that were meant to hold them up.

  • by Miranda Cichy

United Kingdom

 

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