Pain Is a New Thing For Me
Wailing, screaming, and keening were things I was not
familiar with, until I got the shingles in a very tender place.
Then they became my go-to-noises. My husband had to wear
headphones, because it was so loud, so guttural and horrific.
He could not take it, and frankly, neither could I. I had never made
these sounds before, I did not know I could, but I did.
I have new medicine that means I no longer wail or scream.
Weirdly, I am also no longer able to stand upright and walk without
almost falling down. I am not alarmed because I had twelve
kinds of pills before a doctor prescribed something that kept me from
spending my whole day screaming, wailing, and keening, begging for death.
I am now stumbling around in a fog, but falling back into bed is better than what I had been doing for the past seventeen days.
Every once in a while it feels like a tiny devil with a pitchfork puts gasoline on
it, and lights it with a campfire and shoves it up my right hip,
This is preferable to the fifteen minute intervals it had been
happening for seventeen days in a row. These new meds are
keeping me down, because I am afraid to get up, but I am
snoring in a very comfortable deep sleep, which is so preferable
to running around screaming, shrieking, wailing and bawling louder
than I have ever bawled in my life.
I am a rag doll, only wincing in pain once in a great while rather than
every ten minutes. I am understanding drug addicts much better now;
maybe they started out just wanting their pain to stop. I had no idea what
level of pain a person could endure before this affliction grabbed me and stabbed me and burned me and kept me keening, wailing, and screaming. I believe I will be better at my job now, more empathetic, and less judgemental toward people who wisely decide to reduce their pain.
Copyright © Caren Krutsinger | Year Posted 2019
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