I’m Not the Only One (with Chronic Pain)

This is a poem I wrote to help you heal yourself:

For eight years I was in pain,
Each day felt like nonstop rain,
I could not go out to play,
Everyday was like a cloudy day.

In my heart I wanted to dance,
Enjoy life and take a chance,
A step or two of salsa I would take,
But in a moment or two my back would break.

Crumpled on the floor like a collapsed cake,
I wondered what injury to my spine did I make?
The doctor looked up and shrugged his shoulder,
This is what happens when you get older.

Man was designed to live till forty,
Things go downhill when you pass thirty,
But didn’t the Bible say three score and ten?
Like Noah and Moses and Mary and Ben?

Why was this only happening to me?
While much older people were running and free,
Even my mother carried my suitcase into the train,
While I was buckled up, my muscles in a sprain.

Why don’t you try yoga, physical therapy and meditation,
Go swimming, do mindfulness and take medication,
There’s cortizone, oxycontin, vicodin, and diclofenac,
A pill for everything to take out the smack.

Then you can just walk around feeling like a zombie,
Everyone will think you’re a little bit wonky,
And when you start coming back out into the light,
Pharma will prescribe more to put you back out of sight.

The physical exercises sometimes take away the pain,
But in a few hours or the next day, it’s back again,
Why is it that out of 100 people with no pain,
2 out of 3 have the same defects in their spine like mine?

Really? That statistic is a little insane!
Maybe it hits the truth close to the grain,
What if the problem is not in the body…?
What if the problem is in the brain…?

Say what? Are you telling me that I’m crazy?
That I’m going to start spitting out rap like Jay Z?
I used to be perfectly fine way back in time,
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my mind!

Yes that’s exactly the point,
As a five-year-old you were fine,
The only thing that’s changed between now and then,
Is that you’ve adulted your mind again and again.

Now I hear you say:
This is right and this is wrong,
Things should be this way,
And things should be that way,
And only then will I feel safe.

And you hold your views in your grip with might,
Hold on to being completely and utterly right,
And then you wonder why your body is so tight,
And you feel you’re constantly in a fight.

Drop the adult, drop the wo/man,
Drop your thoughts, drop the game plan,
See the world with your child like eyes,
Feel the feelings that once made you alive.

Be the child that fears and rages,
Be the child that cries and laughs,
Be the child that flows in the moment,
And leaves transient feelings behind for the ages.

I found that child inside my mind,
He was there all along, just confined,
I let him out and set his wild side free,
he laughed and sang and tapped with me,

Now I can swim and now I can dance,
Enjoy some salsa and even some romance,
My pain is gone and I’m no longer in a trance,
I stand firm on this earth and I take my stance.

Sunny day or rainy day,
I’m out there ready to play,
I open my mouth and drink in the rain,
Splash in the mud and chase the trains.

My spine is fine, there’s nothing out of line,
Its defects were just a normal sign of aging,
Moses lived till one hundred and twenty,
And Noah past nine hundred and nine.

Can I do this, I hear you ask?
It’s time to be free and take off the mask,
Yes you can do this, and I’ve seen many.
End their pain and dance a jenny.

It’s time to be free,
Live your life filled with glee,
You can have fun under the sun,
And the reason I know this is, because,
I’m not the only one.

with love,
Brajesh