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  • Eli Stuart (they/them)

Invisible Pain

Sometimes, I think I can imagine the reality without the pain

When It was on the back burner

And not a screaming tea kettle that I can’t assuage


Sometimes, I am almost okay

I can think of other things,

Not of if I ate this or did that

And did it actually help or am I a hopeless patient


I am told to:

“Scan your body”

An exercise not made for me

Jarring me into the reality of the aches

The faded scar,

The ankles and knees that I hadn’t used much

But now I can feel the soreness and dull stabbing pain

Clear as day, and It won’t go away


Then I am told to focus:

“All the way down to your fingertips”

Down to the deepest focus of the torture,

My own personal 9th circle of hell:

The stiffness at best,

The stabbing knives at worst

Even while my hand lie idle


I am told to:

“Release the tension in your shoulders”

My shoulders have not relaxed in years

Regardless of how many times I’ve been asked

I’m Atlas, the world on my shoulders

The weight of it much too great

For me to ever let my guard fully down


Sometimes, if I am still enough

If I’m distracted enough

It is almost okay

I can almost pretend I am normal

pretend I am fine

pretend I am painless


But almosts do not equal a cure or an end to It


The whirlwind of afflictions are endless

Symptoms swirling around me


But It is invisible,

If I speak It, often I am dismissed because I look fine

I am dismissed because only occasionally will I disclose

The details of the discomfort,


But when I speak of discomfort, I speak of agony

Discomfort is daily,

But in a week, I just sound whiny


The invisibility of It to the world can never reflect

The chronic turmoil and trouble It brings to me



(Cover Image Description: Stock photo of cursive handwriting on paper, cursive is unable to be read. End of image description)


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