A Neuropathic Villanelle
We all have our crosses to bear
I clench tight my fist, knuckles in white rows—
All I can do is sit and stare.
Spitting and popping, my nerves are flayed bare,
I can’t transcend the pain, and I suppose
we all have our crosses to bear.
The smoldering silent biting Night-mare:
Its fire creeps slowly, as if it knows
All I can do is sit and stare.
Only so much and it begins to wear
me down—wordless passion and twisted pose:
We all have our crosses to bear.
When I’m stressed it comes as a white-hot flare,
and when relaxed, sparks as it comes and goes—
all I can do is sit and stare.
Sometimes, I forget I have a hand there—
It’s a little loss of self, and God knows
we all have our crosses to bear.
All I can do is sit and stare.
© 2006
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Musings and Links from a Litigation Paralegal/Scholar/Writer/Student/Teacher/Woodworker. Poetry, Prose and Language. Websites that are of interest to writers and readers, amateur pictures, and a lot of serendipitous nonsense besides.
1 comment:
I have neuropathic pain and numbness secondary to spinal disc damage at C4-C5. Subjectively, it is either a burning-type pain on the lateral aspect of my forearm, from my elbow down to my thumb, or little shock-y tickles.
I had an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion a few years back, but it seems that some of the damage is permanent, and I have some pain in my arm as a result. I don't know why, but it seems that when I'm feeling stressed, the pain is worse; either I can't deal with it as well, and so it only seems worse, or there's some mechanism that I am ignorant of that causes the nerves to fire off more.
Either way, it sucks enough of my waking consciousness up that I wrote a poem about it.
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