Isn’t it interesting how we can talk to and sympathise with each other about bruises, broken arms, accidents and so on, but we can’t do the same with things we really need to talk about, like life-threatening diseases? I stepped on a plug last week and spent the following days walking around like a drunk hunchback in slow motion. It hurt. A lot. But I didn’t really mind at all. So that’s where this has come from.

I don’t want
sympathy for sciatica
because I know what it is
and it’s not much to me 

and what’s all the fuss over a foot?
A bruise, a cut, it’s nothing much –
soon it’ll be nothing to me 

I don’t need tuts and shaking heads
for being unable to drag my leg out of bed 

Anything I can see is no real issue to me –
a twinge is no big deal
and pain is okay to feel
if I know its rhyme and reason 

But fear is the worst pain
Fear is the sharpest stab in my side,
the most familiar ache 

I would welcome a broken arm instead
A fracture is just that – a fraction of a problem 

So I don’t want sympathy for sciatica
I don’t need support because of my limp
or anything solved by sitting down

because none of that will drive me underground

We haven’t even left for work yet
but already I’m thinking about
coming back home to you.

Yes, okay, I am
emotionally vulnerable –
and what?

I am tired.
Tired from bouncing from happily
oblivious to
diving headfirst into this minefield;
from straining to ignore this
and just being,
to taking ownership and weathering it and
raising awareness of it. I am tired
and I don’t know which way I will
bounce next.