Fiery Pen

The pain has become a good friend at this point, as the weeks have spiraled seamlessly into months. The burning edge on my nerves has become the peripheral of my normal, the baseline of my perception.

It hurts. It has hurt. It always hurts. Perhaps, it will always hurt.

The pain swallows the time, devouring the days whole spent cringing, wincing, and compensating. I do not even remember what it is like to stand up without a grimace or sneeze without a high-pitched whimper. The injury has become part of me; defeat is an adaptation.

The pain burns so vividly. As if my hamstring is being peeled from my pelvis and out the back of my leg in a long bloody line, the tendon quivering like a strummed guitar string. As if boiling water is pouring down the back of my leg in a terrible waterfall that pools prickling in my foot. The fire encapsulates my entire hip before dripping and flowing down my leg until my toes are tingling and my knee buckles. The intensity washes my nerves so blindingly that my entire body seizes involuntarily around the sensation, igniting more angry points of pain.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Strangled breaths shoved from pursed lips. Desperate gasps outside my body.

Until the wave passes. Until the pain recedes back into the injury and the temporary paralysis of it releases.

The pain is always there, always on the edge of the incoming signals to my brain. Any movement can anger the beast. It lies in wait when I sit, exploding upon me when I dare to stand. It coils in my trunk, spiraling out into my limbs when I lean at the wrong angle or look the wrong way. It fractures the world when I sneeze.

The problem is at my root, reaching diseased branches up through my body before forming a sharp nest in my brain. The barbs and edges interfere with the neural firing, deform my reactions and perceptions, warp my personality as it has to arch and bend around the intruder. I would recognize my words and actions as foreign, if I can see anything but the pain. I only know that everything incoming stimuli is now an irritation. It all just adds to the cut of the pain.

I feel trapped within my own damaged body. My bones, wrapped in frayed nerves, form my cage, bind me in the ever-whining flesh. Each flare of pain, each restriction of movement is another barred door between me and functionality. I crave the freedom to move without thought and consequence. I want to just exist, able to do the things I want. I find myself obsessed with healing, with the idea of the other side of this injury. I fantasize about when I am all back to normal again, yet every day without improvement is just a punch in that fixation.

The confined and claustrophobic feeling in my chest tangles and dances with the physical experience of the pain. The two marry and breed into something larger and something darker, something with teeth and fangs that sets upon my mind.  I feel the hot and angry tears escape from my eyes as all the sharp points sink into the soft parts of me. I ugly cry with abandon and despair.

So I run. Literally. And I dance. And I workout like nothing is wrong, adapting and compensating around the injury. Flinching silently, breathing through it, adjusting the movement. It hurts less when I move, or so I tell myself as the endorphins reduce the size of my assailant. I take any escape when my body is quiet and my mind can process any other sensation.

Yet the pain does not relent. When the movement stops, it flares back into place.

Overnight, it changed. Consistently uncomfortable had become tolerable; flashes of pain at movement had become normal. I had packed my life up around the problem and made it work. Then I went to sleep.

With each restless turn, it felt worse. The pain spread deeper over my lethargic muscles. More angles had sharp edges or ignited the fire under my flesh. I found the one neutral position, face down with straight and immobile legs, and I sheltered in it for sleep.

When I did wake, I floundered in the pain. It overwhelmed me, blinded me, surged up over me until I could not move. I struggled to roll over to slam into my limitation. I clawed to sit up and discovered the pain formed a wall to prevent me. I could not move, and when that realization broke upon my mind, I felt the panic bloom in my chest and spread like wildfire over my nerves.

Through a flurry of whimpering and straining, I wrangled myself up from the bed, even to standing unsteadily. Yet when my body unfolded completely upright, there was the pain again. At its highest peak. I clawed at the texture of the paint on the walls as I started to collapse under its weight. My leg was too weak to stand against it.

My husband gathered me, sobbing panicked and disheartened. He dressed me and iced my leg and consoled me until I could move again. Then he mocked me mercilessly to make me smile.

The pain recedes and leaves me washed up on the original shore, still holding my hand like that constant friend.