Independence Day: Poem

written 12.10.23 in the middle of the night

Came to me almost fully formed as I am dealing with this new normal, sleepless and thinking about when I first noticed symptoms of Ehlers-Danlos or POTS as an adult. You can see EDS in my user picture at aged two (or earlier?), and I remember POTS symptoms in my teenaged years, but, I wondered, when did I noticed my long walks being curtailed in adulthood? Work becoming difficult? Then I remembered this Fourth of July, where I was shamed accidentally-on-purpose not quite out of earshot by people who knew better. Yes, this might be one of the more dramatic first times.

Fourth of July

Sylvia’s shore

The sky opening up with flowers of light

The sky lowering like a trap

I felt the storm approaching of choking

Closed throat

I might die this time

I might die every time

I asked you to hold my hands

Touch the only thing to ground me

and trap the fireworks of panic adrenaline

Memories trapped in my body

I did not know yet that I am the archer

You rocked back on your heels and looked at your family instead of me

Not here you said

You’re okay you said

Meaning you don’t want to clasp hands like kindergarteners London bridge is falling down

But it is and I need you to catch it

You promised

I walk away to catch it on my own holding my throat

feeling a shift as dangerous flowers explode overheard

A difference

Vertigo

Brain zaps

Pain

Things are changing in my body

I don’t think anything is wrong with her

This isn’t just panic

Sudden fatigue I go leaden under the petals

She just does this for attention

I walk away from your family’s definition of me into the dark

Away from the garden towards the rocky shore

Where Plath walked with her father as a child

To the soundtrack of war

I laboriously climb the staircase to our apartment

And shed my ridiculously festive flag shirt in the guest room

Strangely I can breathe again

My mind is as deep dark and unknown as Winthrop Bay tonight

I can still hear the flowers of combat

That means you’re not home yet

That means I have time to not think (to not mask yes I know that's what it is called now
yes I know who I am now)

12.10.23