I lift my aching body from the bed
Liked an elder from the wheelchair: rigid

Looking at the mirror, I saw an unfamiliar face
a bad taste in my mouth, brought tears to my eyes

Oh God!
this old familiar hidden pain throughout my body
The light in my eyes dims, throughout this ordeal,
One foot move slowly, the other dragged along
Should I close my eyes, and listen' to it?

Could move on and fight this battle,
Or visual the pain with patience, a caption poem

The pain is rising up, the words began to unscrambles
Letter by letters, words by words
a needed password is required  to block or reset
Every sinew of my anatomy

I lift my aching body from my bed: I got to win
This downhill battle called chronic pain

renowned accidental mean by no means whistling *** runner cannon meridian\
Wow Puerto Rican summer pirate sum Now whale wishing Iberian Blow Conan\
well out westward smell reach beached faking it subsiding solar stream itch diving\
****** fish polar automatic systa\
genix endurance foul global once upon a judgement winter way dope scissors linger tinker\
niAgArA\
dolls bell Apollo Falls impulsivity crawl inciting seasons HALL spring mite coating WATER\
cheer Full luty nebhel stud revise Hallelujah still fill Lord Rama Ring rock paper fling racket\
eering Ludacris rocketeer inscribe Buddhas pencil\
                               fizzles shaman lystic violins fiddle\
                                                         ­  In Hyper mode acorns Nirvana\
                                                        ­           reefs repulsing adorned indulgence\
transistor Tesla quilting Albert schizophrenic blizZZZzard Kings entity bliss enter\
fabricating human being in sin you waiting weave abraham leaves waving goodbye arrive\
destitute mammal blessed less infinity kingdom class order family species genus gene googol\
genius plex praying on language needless speaking to say the least seven married majik three\
cumbersome PI Ed. 3 point 1 door to forestal four tall August Lot Giants consuming gunk\
festival hums incoming lust becoming dust muffs spending ungodly honey dismounts chariot\
dismantling wives involving hives manhandling dead ends revolving lives reclusive evolutions\     revolutions dharma ballistic infusion in spite of invites bellows profusion of the Trinity Beast Hulk\
                hallowed Hindu Titans beauty leak unleashed eight neat legs hands and deeds endowed\
loving kindness freaks on a leach Highland yang ying Bruce V ying yang Lee\
for Vendetta breach Central Intelligence Agent econometric Lake Taekwondo\
belching kajukenbo Yelp confidence dojo defix six triple sister trix un matching\
     style styx\ flex inflict flicK biC hatch imprisoned box batch dix dimension hix\

Let them be, walk around, be noisy
I lie here on the couch
People talk about school & life
My eyes are heavy, my body is aching
I try to relax in the stressful mind

You lie next to me
An arm around my weak body
My safe place, covered up safely
Everyone is going on, so is time
We stand still & I feel loved for a momentum
In your arms

You motivate me, let me see things from a different perspective, when I am too down to see anything but darkness.

A chronic state
Killing and Lying
Loving and Living
Murdering and Curing
An endless state
In which everyone suffers
Eternally
Like an industry
That doesn’t care
About its workers
No one cares about others
Our problems seem colossal
Worries like clouds
Clouding our vision
So that no one cares
Anymore
It’s a chronic state
Of Human Nature

Sometimes I wish you’d cover me in polk-a-dots
big and bright polk-a-dots
scattered from my blonde head
to my long toes

I wouldn’t care what color
pink
or
green
or
red
just big and bright
for her to see
and him to see
so maybe they’d understand
that you are real
and that I am not crazy

Can’t you do it?
just for a day
cover me in polk-a-dots
you do so many other things
from making my fingers tingly
to making my legs wobbly
to making me feel like I’m on fire

Can’t you do it?
even one little polk-a-dot
Please!
so they can see
that you are real
and  that I am in pain

you fall down, you have no choice but to get back up.
when you get back up, you lose something; a piece of your strength, energy, will... something. keeping on is not free.

you spent the day in bed. too exhausted to get up. you're so sick of bed. your body feels angry for being so still. you just didn't have it in you to move around today. this is fatigue. it isn't fair. in fact, it's cruel.

there is no feeling good anymore. there are what some poor souls refer to as "good pain days" which is just another way of saying
"I know what it's like to be in such bad pain that you want to die, and I'm just thankful today's pain was at least not the worst it has ever been"

you're on no kind of schedule. it'd be a blessing just to eat and sleep at normal times, with some regularity. you feel like crap all the time. you gain weight and lose muscle. you feel weak and heavy.

lie in bed. peace of bedtime is a foreign concept,  your body aches to be comfortable, and you may doze off for 3 seconds before jerking awake by inconsiderate muscles that don't really care that you haven't had a solid hour of rest in 2 days.

pills are a blessing and a curse. relief and side effects. they allow you to rest and they mess with your brain. you'll get so sick of taking pills and you'll begin to hate them for needing them.

the very best you see in your future is surviving. that's what fibromyalgia is. your job is getting through the days of pain and exhaustion, the physical and mental detriments that come with it. your life is a fight, and you are so, so, so, so tired of fighting. you always, always, always feel you have no more fight left in you.



you're 21 years old and you fondly and bitterly remember a time (not too long ago) when you thought some things in life would just be givens; career, family, adventure, accomplishments.... health.

you're 21 years old and you learn that you get none of the above. you're too tired, you hurt too much, and this disease seems to only get worse... it seems to have taken everything from you

and then it takes some more.

i'm eighteen and
my mind is running away

you're screaming
ranting and raving
but don't know you're
doing it and don't know
that i'm crawling
inside a cave where
nothing can touch me
except wanting to die

you were grumbling after
dinner that i don't talk
to anybody anymore
but you don't know that i'm
not lacking words i'm just
lacking the energy
that it would take to
use any of them

(flashbacks to all the times recently
you've complained i don't love you
anymore. to my whole lifetime of
wondering if you loved me at all)

i'm thirteen and
unaware of my anxiety
associated with existence
usually put in in writing as
"pressure". but you don't think
there's anyone pressuring me

i talk too much to too
many people and have
been hurt before. but
never in that abject
way of it being because
i set myself up for it

(emotions so haywire that i end
up hospitalized over a box of
broken cd cases. now that i
remember it i was rage cleaning
and would unquestionably have
an even worse reaction today)

i'm seven and
having another ocular
migraine even though
i don't know it

(the past as as brittle as the
uncooked spaghetti filched
from the box and wedging
between my crooked teeth)

my memory fails me
whether you steamed
your way through preparing
dinner in the kitchen of faded
herbal wallpaper with words
and woodgrain. if i've been
tuning it out all this time
only to notice recently

("you're just like me" you said today
my seven-year old self thinks that's cool
while my current self is wishing to
deck someone while saying nothing)

today and tonight when intrusive
memories keep coming back is when i
remember that if i don't automatically
see things from your side there will
be a row. despite the fact you have
never investigated my perspective

(you're complaining about how
badly you sleep and how it's my
fault for waking you up at
four a.m. but did you ever stop
to ask why the ******* your
daughter is awake at four a.m.)

"my whole body hurts" you said
having taken some chronic
illnesses for some light grocery
shopping and attend a reception
"so does mine" i said
having taken a dark cloud
with me to work and
a panic attack to the library
"mine hurts worse" you replied
"and how do you know that" i demanded
sweeping my sadness off the kitchen table
"because i just do"

i guess your problem is that you
don't know how to be in pain without
minimizing mine but how hypocritical
when i'm over here minimizing
your pain to justify the fact that
my brain is trying to **** my body

(one of these days i fear what
i don't say will get the best
of me and i will crack clean
in two. start screaming
through doors death threats
ending in quadruple homicide
accompanied by my own
swinging body. it's not that
i hate everyone i just hate
feeling like i hate everyone)

but for now i'm investigating the perspective
so startlingly clear that you never loved me
just did what was required of you and so by that
standard i never would have loved you either