I know you won’t believe me because You’re in the thick of it, planning Who will pick you up from the emergency Room at 6am, who you haven’t worn out Yet, because this will be your fourth Time in three weeks, lustily watching the Die with dignity commercials weirdly played With the chirpy local morning news You’re up watching at 4am because
That Pain
Has kept you up all night Having rolling panic attacks Sobbing into your fuzzy couch pillows Watching 90210 reruns trying to make the Impossibly sweaty decision of sleep meds or Pain meds, thinking maybe the ultimate relief Would be taking them at the same time and Tearing a hole in the universe as the doctors Assured you would happen if you did.
You don’t go that route And I’m proud of you.
It feels like this will go on forever But I assure you it won’t. Just like your Last sweet peach happiness squished between Your Grabby fingers leaving them longing And sticky, so the bitter bile will Pass out from between your gritted teeth Damn near burning them to powder.
You will smile again with those teeth I swear.
The pain will become a shadow’s shadow in Your sunlight mind and this time your Sweet peach will taste richer for the compassion That’s in it, for the lady annoying everyone moaning In the ER bay next to you—because you were that lady— For the wasting cancer patients who do this not months But years and still smile at their children’s birthday parties
For Yourself
When the bitter bile rises up again As it will in a thousand ways Body and heart but you will know You will lie back into it languid limbs Ride it like a native body surfer and know It passes, this wave too, and this one
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 