Friday, April 26, 2019

When Text Meets Metal


My left leg looks
like bloated carrion,
a buzzard’s feast.

Healing from
another’s inattention
takes all my attention.

This morning begins
with standing on agony
and sweet talking my groans
into believing today
will turn a corner to less pain.

Twice my leg has escaped
the knife, limped away
from sever to hold me
upright in my screams.

How far is a shoe?
How impossible is
a shoe lace?

Today my cane and I
have one goal…to reach
my front door.

©Susie Clevenger 2019

It is written in present tense, but it comes from my experience of rehabilitating from a car accident in 2006.
#NaPoWriMo2019




9 comments:

  1. Oh my Susie! This sounds beyond painful. It sounds a good goal, to reach the front door. Bless your heart. I hope you get to feeling better soon. Sometimes we haveto take life one step at a time

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yikes! I wish you rapid healing! Your poem describes the pain and grit so well. Thanks. k.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Backspasm had a fully empathetic reaction to this work. Hang in there, Clev.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That kind of pain sucks, there's no other word for it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh Susie, also. Inattention costs at times. I wonder what has caused all this (it sounds for true). I do pray, I will for you and the leg, and its cause if things could spread. I have an artificial Knee and two Broken kneecaps, so I do know leg pain. Right now I go upstairs one step instead of the continuous double steps. But I am not is terrible pain like you. Do you cook? Can I bring you some soup?
    http://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/2008/02/chicken-veggie-soup-for-soul-and.html
    ..

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh dear, that's no fun. I have sometimes required a cane for walking, but only temporarily. I hope it is only now and then for you.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, painful, Susie! I hope it the pain eases soon. I love that a light-hearted, steadfast teeth-gritting comes through in the lines:
    ‘… sweet talking my groans
    into believing today
    will turn a corner to less pain’
    and
    ‘How far is a shoe?
    How impossible is
    a shoe lace?’

    ReplyDelete
  8. I hope the pain is subsiding, and you turn that corner.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yikes! I hope you are no longer in any pain and that you never have to encounter anything like that again. This is incredibly powerful in its portrayal of the one's journey into healing. ❤️

    ReplyDelete