surviving pain

(living with Crohn’s Disease)

I listen to the grumbling within
feeling rivers of throbbing pain
coursing through my flesh,
cursing the vulnerability of being.

When the sun rises high enough,
I hobble to my seat outside
and watch my weans at play.
Which helps. For a time.

But the mind turns once more within
as the next wave of pain
rolls callously, carving inside me,
forcing me to close my eyes.

You never stop seeing, though,
or feeling, especially in the depths
of the broken man you have grown into,
moaning for an end. For peace.

In youth we consume fantasies
like an endless supply of sweets,
creating innumerable potentialities,
most of which fade into the past.

But now I thrive on the sweet realities
of my beautiful wife, my weans.
Yet I still talk to the glowing moon
and wander worlds I have never seen.

And I keep going.

there is a snake

There is a snake that dwells within me
I imagine it to be more of a serpent
if only because the name seems more ominous

It slithers silently through my being
sinking its fangs into my gut my lungs my heart
thriving on the blood that slows in my veins

I speak to it from time to time
inquiring after its determined progress
knowing there is nothing I can do to stop it

In the cold of winter between hungry breaths
I ask a boon of my ravenous companion
but I do not think he is listening

So I sip another dram and close my eyes
wandering through the warmest places
my memory can manage to reconstruct

Which is asking quite a lot, I know
but winter being what it is and the serpent
ever hungry, all I can hope to do is ask