Poetry out of pain

it is / an eagle / that never perches

Photograph by Camille Brodard

Dear hopeful reader,

Honesty time: I’m afraid. My health situation is currently full of uncertainties, and therefore fears. This happens to me from time to time. As joyful and optimistic as I usually am, some days I break, and fear takes over.

So my state these days has been that of melancholy and anxiety. But I won’t give up. I’ll pull myself together. For now, I’ll sit with my feelings and let them pass through me until other feelings replace them.

At least another lore poem was born from this—“pain lore”—which you can read below. I haven’t written poems for my project sun lore and other poems in a while, so that was a happy moment for me to be able to continue it again.

In other news, I just got a new project-based job and start it today. That means I’ll be busy and may be writing with less frequency until I manage to balance both work and writing and health. I’m not going anywhere!

Also read: Write tender poems and feel how your heart swells with love and gratitude

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pain lore

it is / an eagle / that never perches / a dream of life / only in a dream / a sunflower / breathing / sunless / it is / a box of lost / & found / of emptiness / an intersection / between / what was / & / what would have been / the intensity of joy / & love / upside / down / it is / a mountain climb / steep / & steeper / feet sinking / in sinking sand / a song sung / unstrung / a body / frozen in time / aging / still

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It’s not easy to describe chronic pain or understand it unless you live it daily or you know someone who does. But I hope I shed some light on the impossibilities of living with it through poetry.

Write about invisible, intangible things concretely and tangibly. Or, write about them in allegories and poetically.

It’s through vivid images that we connect to each other’s struggles and situations and relate to each other better.

Yours hopefully,

Nadia

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