I have the misfortune of suffering from chronic pain. My pain comes in the form of a railroad spike driving itself through my temples. The pain is constant and unrelenting. I’m fortunate that I’m now on a medication that helps keep these headaches at bay. It’s not a perfect medication as it has a couple of side effects that I absolutely hate, most notably weight gain, but to keep that mack truck of pain from  destroying me I deal with the side effects. Lately my headaches have been creeping back up, even though I’m on the medication. I think it may be due to stress as I’ve been working 75-80 hour weeks all month and I don’t anticipate that slowing down for at least another two months. So the long hours and heavy workload are probably a contributing factor into how my head is feeling.

On Friday I read a poem from Split This Rock, an organization that “[calls] poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.” I found them a couple of years ago when I attended their poetry festival, I’ve been getting weekly emails from them since and it’s always good to read the poetry they send out. The poem they sent out Friday was so raw and beautiful and so very accurately captured what it’s like to live with chronic pain that I had to share it. (Used with permission.)