Pastel in the making
I came across this old photos of me drawing a pastel of myself. What strikes me is the power that exudes from the painting as the depth of character and emotion emerge with each additional stroke. Sometimes I like the half drawn version even more than the finished product. It tells its own story.
This is my experience.
PAINFUL
How can I describe the stultifying ‘nothing’ in my body
That keeps me trapped
Away from all that I could do
All that I am?
There really are no new words
To convey the utter emptiness
Of mind and body
That I exist in.
The fragmenting pain,
The overwhelming numbness,
The impossible effort it takes
To move
To think
Even a single interesting thought
Beyond the experience of
Interminable illness
That pounds at me
Crushing me into the smallest space
Not only in the room,
But in my body.
Secretly trapped in a tiny space in my head
My memories are shut down to indiscernibility.
My enthusiasm for life
Is increasingly dulled by never ending inability.
My love is locked in a smallest box
Deep inside my self
Unable to be fully expressed.
As years go by
And decades of agony mount up
How hard it is to keep hope alive
Of better days
And happy moments,
Of a life filled with possibility not inability.
How high does that joy of living have to fly
To get over the rancid pain that gnaws at the core of my being?
How open can I be to receiving the gentlest touch
When barbs of pain shriek through me at the slightest pressure?
Oh how I long for a respite that has never come.
How much do I crave the simplicity of just one normal thing in my life
That cannot be corrupted by the destruction in my body.
Poem and Artwork by Linda Crowhurst 2024
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