Thick black flaps
Ragged, jagged, tear about my head
Wrenching me apart.
I am blinded, deafened and made speechless
By the biting, clawing, dragging.
Worried, warm, loving fingers tenderly stroke my arm and face
Trying to comfort, to sooth.
In vain. I am elsewhere, swallowed whole by my pain.
I writhe.
I kick.
I try to fight the twisting and the torture.
To sleep or to die would be sweet release.
I am drowning in pain.
Far away, safe on the dry land of every day
The doctor’s voice: ‘An infection of the middle ear’.
Susan Elkin, 1991
