Something interesting happened as I was doing a writing exercise yesterday. I was roughing out a poem using a prompt that required you to put certain things on each of 14 lines (ie, a feeling, an observation of your surroundings, a personification of an inanimate object, a metaphor, a prominent memory, symbolism, and so on).
As I played with the prompt, plugging in the requirement for each of the first 6 lines, I began writing a poem about the severe fatigue of CFS. I hadn't consciously chosen that as the subject...I just jumped in and started writing. It asked for a feeling. What I was feeling was overwhelming fatigue. (When you live with this disease, fatigue becomes more than a physical sensation, as if that wasn't enough.).
What is interesting about all this is that, the new poem is one of only two poems I've ever written about being ill. The first poem was written 6 years ago. It was one of my first poems written as an adult. Of all the poems I've written and ones I've started, I think it's kind of odd that only two have been about my illness...and so far apart in time. Odd, too, that I hadn't thought about writing another poem about having/living with CFS.
I don't think I thought about writing another because I was trying so hard to make a life around the CFS and because I'm a proponent of Eastern philosophy which teaches acceptance. I tried to accept and move on...focusing on living life the fullest way that I could and not focusing on the disease more than I was forced to.
The poem isn't complete yet...I have several versions roughed out. This one is getting there I think.
measuring days
in teaspoons
another day
passes
as fatigue
that ravening
beast
feasts on
my body
and gnaws on
my bones
No comments:
Post a Comment