A short pause in my life in which I’m still breathing.
Ten minutes, one hour, two days—we’re going on a week here.
Pushing on in the hopes that ****** functions will resume as normal.
There’s something tearing at my lungs, stinging my nose, blocking my eyes.
My heart feels just about ready to collapse—the final straw is bending in my gut.
I close my eyes and pretend it’s all a dream.

Everything is sore.
It hurts to move, hurts to breathe, hurts to try.
But I know it will hurt much more to give up, so I keep on pushing.
Pushing on in the hopes that ****** functions will resume as normal.
All I’ve got to do is give it time (but I don’t have time to give).
I’m still breathing (*******, it hurts so much).

I am so frail.
I hate being so fragile, so insecure in the one structure I own.
This structure is mine and they have taken it and reconstructed it and now I am left to rebuild.
I have no blueprints and no real tools. All I have is imagined support.
But I cannot rebuild on imagined support. I don’t have time for that.
All I’ve got left is cracking and I can’t even tell when it’s going to break.

But I try—I try so hard—to reassure myself that this is simply a short pause.
A short pause in my life in which I’m still breathing.
But dear god, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!
Painkillers aren’t killing anything but my spirit.
Please, I just want to restart.
I just want to resume.

This hospital bed is not a home.