Poetry Corner: Three Poems and a Turning Point

As I mentioned in earlier blogs, before, during and after I was diagnosed, I emotionally shut off for a time. I seemed to get easily overwhelmed, panicky, and then I would be totally unfeeling. 

For over seven months I couldn’t even write poetry. Then one month, during a particularly dry unfeeling state, the following three poems found their way out of me and onto paper. 

This was the first time that I’d felt like I was truly able to express myself in a long time. Also, as I read over them in the order they were written, I feel that you can see a healing process beginning to stir in the early stages.

They Say I Look Fine...

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.

My flesh is wasting and I am wide-awake.

Wide awake as I forget

Wide awake as my body sleeps

Wide awake as my vision fades

God help me! Where are my hands!

“Excuse me, please, where is my voice?”

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.

I feel spiders chasing butterflies inside my veins

I feel cold and hot at the same time

I feel my bladder screaming every five minutes

I feel that I am unfeeling

I am scared!

“Excuse me, where is my inner strength?”

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.

Doctors say there is no cure

Others say I look fine

Doctors say medication and “Can you walk from here to there?”

Others say this and that and you’ll be cured

But I can’t shake this one off!

“Where is my faith?”

Something’s wrong, I can feel it.

I shake all over, but no one sees it, yet.

I shake, I crumble, I cry, I ache

I shake wondering what it means

I shake yet methodically move

Somebody hold me!

My peace is lost

…

Something’s wrong,

can feel it.

Everything is shaking

Nothing is certain.

By Diana M. Bateman
2004 ©

~

Yesterday, Today, and Whenever

Day 1: The Storm Inside

A sudden chill

burns through my flesh

creeping allover and

butterflying me –

simultaneously heat radiates the chill and burns on.

Shrinking my sinews…

gray matter becomes grayer

as my bones clatter,

chattering unheeded demands.

Merging synaptic conversations into white noise –

it’s too loud,

so loud I feel it

taking away my “I think I can”,

as I putter backwards into me.

Exposed,

I am surrounded by life’s storm;

I am stuck inside a war of the elements; beyond repair.

Holding on to anything,

as long as it’s not moving, I wait.

Watching

waiting

hoping little damage is done –

praying for aide,

knowing there is none.

Day 16: Cessation

A sudden chill burns

B s

A d

C r

K a

W w

k A

c R

a D

b S

radiating departure. I am left

with an odd redress

and its heat leaves its chill on me…

Awakening my sinews from a

painful hibernation,

they rejoin the quick –

though the subliminal white noise

never leaves.

By Diana M. Bateman
2004 ©

~

Just Smile, Carry On

none of us are exactly the same

some hobble

some stand tall

others are obvious in capability

then there are those that you cannot tell,

but that you watch in curiosity

then, for some reason,

we compare ourselves;

letting the supposed reality frighten us

or render hope on apron strings

regardless

these comparisons become false expectations

causing needless anticipation

of the worst

or best

in the end it is all just another excuse

interrupting success…

graded on self perception of ability

the point is often missed.

By Diana M. Bateman
2005 ©