Category: ME/ CFS

A Call for Harmony

6:30 a.m. alarm sounds.
“Time to wake up!” Compliance commands.
“Just a little longer,”  Sensibility suggests.
Guilt, like an incessantly annoying child
tugs on Conscience:
“Come on; there’s lots to do!”

Body does not respond.

Sleep wins
and dreams come:
homeless,
relying on friends,
no food,
backed up toilet,
children’s wide eyes fearfully imploring:
When is this all going to end?
Guilt propels a return to consciousness.

8:25 a.m.
“Up and at ’em! There’s a good Soldier!”
Compliance attempts to be chipper.
“There’s really other more important than rest,”
Sensibility insists.
“Can’t lie in bed all day!” Guilt counters.

Body is MIA.

Dreams surface again:
setting up house in a thoroughfare,
people coming and going, oblivious
co-workers indifferent,
eyes scolding: convicting
Guilt mutates to rage,
Body wakes up choking, gasping
reaches for the rescue inhaler
sucks in, desperate for air.

11:11 a.m.
“That’s it! Up you get!”
“No! No! Rest is needed!”
“The day is wasted! There’s no going back!

“SILENCE!”  A new voice emerges.

A collective intake of breath.

“Breathe; just breathe.”

A unified sigh.

“And breathe again.”

Tempers cool, and emotions begin to settle.

“What’s going on?” Guilt wonders.
“Just trying to stick to routine,” Compliance explains.
“It’s always been this way.”
“But she’s ill now,” Sensibility adds; “concessions are necessary.”

“Breathe,” the voice asserts.
All sigh again.
“Just be in the stillness of the moment…”

Stillness has no voice.
Her language is compassion and infinite,
infinite wisdom.

“…and surrender.”

Compliance sobs, releasing enormous obligation.
Sensibility gratefully releases burden of responsibility,
and Guilt – well Guilt is little – happily snuggles up
to Unconditional Love.

“There, there,” Voice soothes; “isn’t harmony so much better?”

Body concurs and rises out of bed.

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(Today’s prompt challenges us to look at the differing parts of self and start a dialogue.   I decided to rework a poem I wrote in 2014 when suffering from severe M.E.  Dealing with a debilitating illness brought all the inner voices to the surface, and I struggled with the emotional and psychological aspects of having my life shattered.  A Call for Harmony attempts to illustrate the struggle.)

Plateaus

The quest for love
an uphill climb,
the footholds
loose and failing

Scrapes heal, and
hearts yearning
begin again, forget
the falls, aspire

Unconditional love
a dizzying height,
soulmates and
pre-destination

Goals for romantics,
by my heart reaches
for a memory, a return
to the beginning

When kisses warm
and embraces strong
conveyed desirability,
love’s reverence a peak

much steeper to attain
when age, in its folly
lusts after a youth’s game,
time a cruel intervener.

Up In Smoke

Should have known when
the first light passed
without a sound,
morning half gone
before consciousness
pried my eyelids open.

Should have known when
my Ninja pushed back
refused to blend
breakfast smoothie
forcing me to sip sludge
through straw

and when the line
on my browser
failed to budge
past the quarter mark
leaving me frustrated
I should have known then

but I ignored it all,
pushed beyond the signs
reached for that infallibility
gene (that never existed)
and almost set the house
on fire – element left on

and that’s when I knew
reflexes not kicking in
exhaustion claiming brain
emotions revved in overdrive
that today was not my day
and I should have stayed in bed.

Hold Fast

Unity of thought fleeting,
overpowering potential –
adaptation never-ending.

Possibility articulated,
ridicule attached –
an irrelevant couple.

External/ societal motivators
destroy heart, fuel panic –
authority wrongly positioned.

Take hold of intent, mend
what lingers, forego paranoia
improvement is achievable.

Test urgency, measure reluctance,
stand firm mid-breakdown –
abandon doubt, calm thoughts

Like the sun and the moon,
life cycles; there is promise,
sanity will return, renewed.

Feverish

Sleep comes in great fistfuls
will not let me shake it
tosses me in seas of dreams –

a first love, teenage antics,
a mother’s toil – I am pulled
under, tossed like a rag-doll

a soft breeze like a mindful
caretaker, caresses my skin
reassures me with her lulling

sweetness, forgives negligence
of household chores, promises
all can wait; I succumb again

 

 

 

 

Open To Healing

Open to healing –
delve into the subconscious
create a space for inspiration.

Ignore limited capabilities –
no offerings are meager –
enter with pure intentions.

Embrace new starts
have faith in ability
be spurred into action.

The Self holds the answers,
creative expression is the key.
No expertise required.

(I first wrote this in August of 2015, a year and a half after being diagnosed with ME/CFS. This was likely the lowest point of my disease – it is encouraging to look back and realize how strong my spirit was back then despite my condition.)

 

Investment Talk

It’s all about investment, really
life, I mean – make a deposit,
withdraw – hope that in the end
the gain is worth more than
the cost – a healthy balance.

Have been running deficits,
too focused on serving others,
practicing the art of giveaways –
incentives to capture attention
(affection too, if I’m honest.)

I’m every marketer’s dream –
impulsive, in the moment,
disbelieve that time is money –
illness having dumped time
on my lap in massive dollops

I’d say energy equates with
income, begets funds – all
redundant now, overdrawn
as I am, no safety deposit
securing balanced health.

Inner Turmoil

Outlets, I have plenty,
for the excrement that accumulates
within these challenged walls

I soak and scrub, and
paint my cabinets yellow
hoping the optimism will sink in

will match the green of my smile
the expansiveness of my exterior
but the in-dwellers are provoked

question ego’s motivation
in selling off the residence
shaking their sedentary slumber

there was respite in disability
an imposed seclusion that calmed
the worries, invited complacency

who can rest in this motorized
uprooted reality, and what purpose
will evolve from the overflow

of emotions that flood, flashes
of insecurity, defying wisdom
threatening to cloud our sunshine?