Broken Wing

I look out the barred window holding my broken wing, dreaming of flying into the wind. They say I will heal better here then anywhere. I say a bird cannot be caged even in hopes she will get better.

We need to feel the wind

smell the earth

be touched by the light

I need to be home with my daughter!

Between their walls, they say I have the time to rest, to heal my broken wing. I say I will go mad in this cage with their oppressive views, their insistence of unreal problems, their pushing of meds. 

I take their tests of mind and body
walk the walk and talk the talk

I learn the ways to get free

The day arrives I get to fight for my freedom. We sit around the big table. Their attentions are focused towards my papers. Their words are tight with judgment.

My hairs rise with every false word they utter. I amazingly keep a straight face, crossing my fingers tighter with every lie, slowly working free of their web. Inch by Inch.

I can almost feel the wind

drifting across my face

flowing through my hair

I make promises to them I know I will never keep. Playing their game, maneuvering one-step ahead, wondering if they are aware of the bird they cage. A bird that will be free tomorrow no matter what happens no matter what they decide.

Did they look in my eyes and see fright? Did they realize my papers were not a match to me? All I know, I won the fight for my freedom.

I say Goodbye to the barred window, the wonderful nurses that cared for me, the narcotic I begged to get off, the doctors that hated my mouth, the ultra sound I learned to expect.

I get to go home to my daughter.

I enter the world through their electric doors sensing my coming freedom. I pause in the sun feeling the touch I longed for inside, breathing in the smell of earth. I slowly walk to the car with a skip to my stumbled steps. My daughter is on one side and my good friend on the other. I stop and turn toward the rehab building glaring with my Eagle eyes.

Giggling, I flick off the building

Shouting

“You’ll never see me again!” 

~~~~~~~~

The rehab is a physical rehabilitation unit I was at after my last relapse from Multiple Sclerosis. 

posted for One Shot Wednesday week 31 at One Stop Poetry

Grateful

I begin this post with a reading of the prose Grateful. I feel it is a piece that has to be heard not just read.

 

People ask me if it sucks to have MS. If life is really hard, especially; being a single mom too. What can you say to that? “No! It’s a snap!” or “I barely make it! I have no idea what to do any more.”

Neither of those answers works for me. I don’t want to be too revealing or a drama queen. I want to strive for balance and be more honest with fewer words. Is that possible?

I used to think MS was a burden upon my life. Always taking something away from me and leaving nothing in return. I felt my legs get weaker and my fingers loose feeling. I felt my pride lessen and my confidence dwindle.

Then one day, I realized I had it all wrong. My daughter and I were complaining about how much it sucked that MS interfered with our lives. I needed a relaxing quiet home day and my daughter wanted to spend the day at the beach. We were both disappointed in our own ways in our own corners. Then it dawned on me, it all mattered how you were looking at it. At another angle it could look quit different.

I began to reflect to the day my legs stopped running and I received the gift of a slow pace in all its entirety. I glanced down at my hands and thought of how they used to create works of beads and wood but clumsiness took root in them and now words bounce forth. I pivoted to be face to face with my daughter and remembered how lucky I am to walk with her throughout her day.

It took awhile for my eyes to open and for me to recognize the life teaching lessons that I am acquiring living with MS. It is so much easier to notice what is disappearing from ones life and a great deal harder to see what one is gaining from living with a disability.

I am grateful for receiving such treasures!

©2008

posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry week 23

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