Arthritis

Wrinkled forehead creases as he looks at me From the burgundy sofa where he lives most days Free of things like water bills and car payments He lies down to eat and drag slowly on a cigarette The smoke fills the breathing space up again And I wish he could quit taking of the nicotine Yet I know that his addiction is stronger to this Than any addiction he might have to my tenderness His pain drifts around me like a silent glare Lifting up toward my confidence and sucking air Whispering to me of the ways that I can care For his back and hip, his bones that are arthritic He doesn’t tell me that he is hurting every day Instead the pain surfaces when we’re quiet, watching The television blaring away in the background Sounding like some channel like national geographic When he laces up his hiking boots, it’s there inside A little boot insert that makes one leg a little higher This helps his hip to not hurt the way it once did And gives him the leverage to walk easy as a black lab It’s the pain that forced the doctor to prescribe for him Opioids that were in fashion when he first visited the man They are said to lessen the pain and make him feel again Like the man he was before arthritis started to sing solo The medicine is another addiction for him to sin with It isn’t taken in order the way the bottle instructs him He takes more of the tablets than he would need if he was Losing a leg or arm or using a morphine drip with it Finally, he stops taking the pain medication for good Seeing that it never helps his aches despite what he does He is left with the knowledge that he must take his aching And leave it there, on the couch, for a pillow to sleep against He suffers and I pray that someday he will find some way Of realizing that he has been blessed with this disease Which tells the joints to erase the youth of the past thirty years And remind the bones that tomorrows are no longer laughing Tomorrow they will pray the way that I have told them to With a sincerity and compassion for the ones who do know They will never walk again or use some of their limbs For they are the ones who truly suffer from a loss of living He looks at me with eyes dilated by painful nights But he knows the times will bring him back to joy And there he can appreciate, thank God for everything Because without this pain, he’d simply be another addict The cigarette brings me back to the room with him And I stop thinking of the ways he could become a friend Instead of the one who knows that I am his wife Not his foe, despite my stirring him up with words He and I are best friends in spite of where we’ve been In front of doctors and nurses, trying to kill this curse That makes us feel we’ve been given a life sentence Not to mention, the loss of mere genuine feelings September 15, 2019 Crossroads Poetry Contest Sponsor: Silent One