Work

I know I am getting better.  It clicked in my mind, all the data.  I've told you it all already, but it wasn't until I gathered enough data over a long enough period of time that it clicked in my mind that I am getting better.

But I've been in a pain flare for over a week, and it is hard to keep my head up.

Sometimes I flash from another universe back into this body and I see my pain as if it's new.  It makes me want to sleep.

I thought I was out of the flare over the weekend, but maybe it was that I was standing.  I have been sitting at the office.  I am so tired that I don't want to stand.  But my pain rises and rises, and I think it rises over the course of the week.

I wrote this poem about it while at work.  I go to the bathroom and it is terrifying to pee, but it is also the only place at work I can show that I'm in pain.

Like a lightning bug
I stop my blink
and settle down to bed.
Still the day rolls
and the silence rolls
and there is not a scrap of shadow
to hide in.
I fold
like a moth
with no light to chase
and grip time and time and time
before the unfolding.
It is so bright here
and I am empty,
all white,
I am a starved belly
feeding on gristle
without a body
to hold it.
I settle
into soft ground
as if a weight greater
than my shape
and wish for the plunk
plunk of rain
to help me sleep.
I am a shell, a
beetle,
I cannot believe
how thin my wings
that crumple like tissue
inside me.
I cannot believe
they lift.
I am
an antlion.
I carve my cone
into the sand
and wait and throw
and digest.
That I am so tricky,
so clever,
is my distraction.