I wish to not feel the aftershocks of the war occurring inside,
To not make one move that crushes my whole day
under the weight that tears my joints apart.

And yet,

Doctors smile and tell me nothing is wrong
Doctors smile and state that my pain tolerance is just too low
Doctors smile and run the same **** tests
that produce the same **** results
They smile while I rip my hair from my scalp.

The days bleed into one as the clouds covering my brain
chain me to the bed and make raindrops fall from my eyes,
Friends start to believe that I just don't care when I leave their messages covered in dust,
dying in a graveyard called my will to live.

I want to be there for them,
my soul needs to be present with them,
but when you have to box a heavy weight champion inside your own veins just to be able to take a single step,
you got nothing left to give to anyone else.

I'm stumbling through this performance titled life
not even knowing the identity to the puppet master pulling the strings,
fighting an invisible battle against a nameless warrior
and somehow meant to smile and bear it.

-Undiagnosed-

Pray, don’t pity me,
For I do take blame
That I pity myself
And thus suffer this pain,
And please don’t mock
For there are greater ills
And more the deaths,
My suffering is nil.

Then perhaps
You’d maim my diet,
The lack of sun and
Poor exercise.
I need not even ask
How I’d improve my life,
When the bones sap my vigor
and seem to swell overnight.

And how could I ever try to say
That I see darkness when I go my way,
Pins and needles as I stand,
When the fault is mine anyway?

I shouldn’t even start to think
How my head throbs and pounds all night,
It’s surely because I don’t wake up with the sun.
But how do I wake when I don’t close my eyes?

Now, could it possibly be
You decided that I don’t rest,
That all this pain causes fatigue,
That sleep, you think, is for the best?
Consider when after hours and hours
My body finally dreams in defeat,
Would anyone care to do my work
If I shirk it off to get more sleep?

If the animals end up ill fed,
And the duties are not supervised,
With what peace do I lie in bed,
When it could be done better otherwise?
And so here I do write at six,
With my jaw stiff and eyes bright,
The wires of pain gently shift
Every time I move my hand to write.

What could I wake anyone for,
When painkillers don’t **** enough?
Just to say I cannot sleep?
I’d hear ‘wake up then, be tough’.
So do not again
Bid me to be strong,
Unless you tell the blind to see.
Well dear sir,
There’s no argument for that,
Except, please let me be.

What indeed could you try to cure
When I’m just deficiencies,
Of wit and courage, also strength,
Calcium may be imaginary.
But truly, I do agree,
With the opinion you selflessly endure.
For evidently
Nothing’s wrong with me,
And the pain one must learn to ignore.

I sit here...
Undiagnosed.

Myriad symptoms
that tell a thousand stories.
Plethora of aches
that divulged
where things may have veered off course.

Those around offered what they could.
I face open palms daily
and I recognise them to be
gestures of good will and empathy.

I accept with only appreciation and gratitude.

But the wisest could only
provide uncertainty at best.

This is me.
And I'm undiagnosed.

It's bothering me
That ticking on the wall
Can't you hear it
The more you focus
The louder it gets
Please, make it stop
So many other things
To be thinking about
That are all in the background
Because of this clock
The gears moving
Making me tick
I can't move, can't breathe
Can't do anything
Because that ticking on the wall
Will not stop
It only gets louder
The more you focus on it
Can't you hear it too?