Red-Hot Pain Poem by Margaret Alice

Being me is not easy, it would have been
better if I could have turned into you as I’ve
tried to do, eating spicy and varied dishes
without complications, now you are sleeping
while I’m moping about, pain forcing me into
philosophizing about life - when the prism in
my head is squashed and pulped, deformed
and compressed; the world shrinks and sound
turns into pain, vision becomes burning, ideas
become suffocation

I’m always brave and claim I can stand the pain,
but when an attack starts, my self-pity grows to
mythological proportions, enclosing me behind
a glass wall of pain – discerning a distorted picture
of the world while unable to interact with anything;
with pain intensifying, I can’t recall the jewels of
beauty and wisdom I have collected, can’t slumber
or sleep, turning into a block of senseless stupidity,
focusing on the most essential aspect of anything,
unable to enjoy non-essentials

With this noose waiting to strangle me dangling in
my head, I hate non-essential time-consuming details
with a vengeance - setting the heavy iron ball of molten-
lead concentration moving takes so much effort and self-
discipline, must follow rules to remain pain-free and positive,
no time or desire to focus on temporal things such as material
possessions, must find the most enduring perspective, make it
true and applicable - CREATING meaning for a life unbalanced
in terms of sensory distortion and brain dysfunction - is the
only way to keep going in spite of

Energy-depleting, senseless waves
of red-hot pain…