the monster lying low

This week is M.E Awareness Week.  I feel a little inadequate to write something, so I'll repost a poem I blogged here in January 2008, as a reflection on my own experience.

there are so many ways to describe you...
although none is enough

you are a monster lying low
dormant at times, merely draining
at other times a beast intent 
on destruction

oh how I wish I could be rid of you

you are a cage with bars unyielding
shrinking inward, and I am trapped
squeezed and desperate to escape
this feeling

oh how I wish I could be rid of you

you are poison in my veins
you fill my body with leaden weight
motion becomes an effort
for me now

oh how I wish I could be rid of you

sometimes, you have been my teacher
causing me to notice what I would never
have noticed without you, known
without you

but oh how I wish I could be rid of you

now.

For a more prosaic account of my experiences, try here.  Obviously this is written two years ago, so it's not entirely up to date.  There are those who have far more severe CFS/ME than I do - see here.