Poetry

This is an original long-form poem about my experience with migraines: the onset, the symptoms, and the fog that comes afterward.

I wrote this poem to try to put my migraine experience into language. Pain can erase one’s whole world. One yearns only for relief. After pain, I sometimes experience what Oliver Sacks described as a post-migraine euphoria: an overwhelming sense of ease and contentment. My neighbor’s yard is filled with azaleas. Most of the year it is a tangled mess of shrubs but when it blooms, it’s gorgeous. My post-migraine euphoria feels like the azaleas in bloom. But is the euphoria worth the pain?

“My body is weak and I almost fall.
I’m numb everywhere and can’t stand it at all”

“I call you my Friend, you are always there, From dawn to dusk, every day.”

“It starts in the front and moves to the back.
My noodle is under attack”

“I struggle with the pain.
Nothing to do but wait,
I cannot see the light
screaming Inside my head.”

“Loud static pulsing through my head
then the pressure pushing and pounding
through my skull.”

“Today I have a headache -“

“Never far behind…looming there. They wait.”

“A little seed, a little soil
A little nurturing to help and then a tree blossoms
And blooms and then overcomes the forest.”

“Headaches are a thing in life.”

“Headache, some say just a headache.
To me also heartache,
It robs me of all joy and all hope.”