Pain Poem: A Misery Too Great to Bear
/"A Misery Too Great to Bear"
By Angelika Byczkowski
People in pain are dying,
a reluctant calculation,
the only option left to escape
a misery too great to bear.
While we struggle with our pain,
our government has decided
to snatch relief from opioids
away from us for our own good.
They say one pill begins the end,
addiction guaranteed.
We say we need a powerful shield
only opioids can provide.
By policy now unarmed, defenseless,
we are stalked by pain through every moment.
It hunts us down relentlessly,
sinks fangs in deep and feasts.
It rips the flesh and breaks the bones,
cracks the skull and snaps the spine,
with license to do just as it pleases,
impunity guaranteed by decree.
We are sent out naked now
to battle this rampaging pain
with methods long disproven, yet
"believe and it will be" they say.
Denied our armor, medication
callously denied by guidelines,
we teeter at the ragged gash
where soul was ripped from body.
How much pain and for how long
can we be asked to bear,
while experts coin their catchy phrases,
call our pain "catastrophizing".
A catastrophe indeed is pain:
It traps us in the wreckage,
wandering the sad remains
of tortured flesh that cannot heal.
What we know is pain, we feel
only pain, exploding pain,
pain so bad it breaks our will
to live like this forever.
Pain dominates, annihilates,
ruthless in its roaring rage, while
helpless at the feet of the beast,
we lie sacrificed for overdoses not ours.
People in pain are dying,
a reluctant calculation,
the only option left to escape
a misery too great to bear.
Angelika Byczkowski suffers from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and fibromyalgia. Until she was disabled by progressive pain and fatigue, Angelika was a high tech IT maven at Apple and Yahoo. She lives in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains with her husband and various four-legged kids.
When pain isn't keeping her flat on her back, she spends her limited energy researching and blogging about chronic pain, EDS, and fibromyalgia at EDS Info.
Pain News Network invites other readers to share their stories (and poems). Send them to: editor@PainNewsNetwork.org.
The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.
