TURMOIL.
My mind, like a heavy tome,
Is weighing me down -
Full of knowledge yet
Useless in my despair.
I know, in theory, how to combat this;
In practice the turmoil looks like threatening my sanity:
My mouth, sand-dry and cracked;
My stomach, wrenching and somersaulting;
My chest, gripping tight, constricting my breath.
The vacancy of my expression
Is the doorway to my soul -
Itself, lost and wandering aimlessly
In a void of spiritual guilt.
My therapist works so hard to help me turn the tide to
Cognitive positivity.
My priest, a good man, with his caring philosophy
Gives me scriptures to read,
Wherein I may find my truth.
And in between them, me,
Fighting to find just who I am
And what I will do for the rest of my life!
|
RETINAL DETACHMENT.
I awake with a start in the darkened room
The pain searing my bandaged right eye -
Evidently the effects of the anaesthetic and painkillers have worn off.
Then it throbs, sticky-lidded and syrupy,
Reverberating in my head.
The nurses on nightshift pad up and down the corridor,
And the sounds of sleepers, restless and snoring,
Remind me of where I am
Lying still in the slate-grey of the encroaching dawn,
Hot and sweating on top of the sheets
Wanting to go to the toilet.
Groggy-headed I look through a perspectiveless left eye,
And feel the nausea rising in my gullet.
My pulse throbs in my temple too quickly as another
Needle stabs my right eyeball.
I sit up, fighting for breath as I gasp at the calm of the dark.
Hours of sitting, propped against the pillow fills my bladder,
And I move with the discomfort of copious amounts of urine,
As I totter towards the toilet, each step a shock of pain in my lower regions.
The burn hurts as my body fights to expel the fluid
Against the constriction of my prostate.
And, for twenty minutes,
I forget the pain pulsating in my eye and the sickness in my throat.
Eventually, cups of hot tea come with the dawn.
As the bandage is removed
My eye squints in pain at the brightness of the pencil of light,
As the surgeon examines his handywork.
'I'm sorry'-he says, 'It's not worked, we'll have to do it again!'
My heart sinks as, once more, my depression engulfs me!
|
