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Rheumatoid Arthritis

by K. Kylyra Ameringer


How can I help but be pulled to self-pity?

From time to time

We all visit that cold room;

Our feeble walls of courage crumble

Pain overwhelms.


I remember my mother's hands

Twisted like an oak grown in a tornado

Scarlet and white

And I tremble:

Mirror-image hands lay in my lap

Flushed with the shades of fuschia.


I have hyper-aged

Cane-carrying eighty-year-olds lap me

In the streets

My knees snap like popguns

I strap myself down with bindings and ties

Just to stand the fluidity of movement.


The war has entered the home front:

Battlefield body.

At night I marshall my Generals,

Patience and Hope,

And dig foxholes in my dreams,

Shoring up the front.


So how can I help but be pulled to self-pity?

From time to time

We all visit that cold room.