Monday Musings: Four Walls
I will be making a new post every Monday in a segment I am calling "Monday Musings". I want to share the inspiration behind all of my poems from my poetry book The Bright Side of Dark, with which all poems involve a deep connection to my medical problems. My first Monday musing is about my poem called Four Walls.
I remember quite vividly writing Four Walls. I had been admitted to the hospital yet again, for what I don't remember exactly but I remember being in excruciating, unrelenting pain. I sometimes end up in the hospital for over a week and I think this time is had been almost two weeks of no relief...no help. Everyone knows what hospital walls look like, they are a bleak, bland shade of off-white. I don't think that they could have picked a more dreary color to surround people whose world is already dreary enough as it is. Day in and day out I awoke to those walls. I did have a window that provided some color in my life, but in a way it was kind of a cruel reminder of the fact that I was stuck in this depressing and dismal environment and I couldn't be a part of that vibrant world outside.
Social Media is a double edged sword when it comes to being sick and/or in the hospital. It is wonderful to be able to connect with loved ones and to have their support, but again I was stuck seeing new posts about people going out and having fun. It really does amplify the depression you are feeling, it makes you feel like you are being left to slowly rot alone while your friends are out on some epic adventure.
When you are in the hospital (and frankly when you are just chronically ill in general, like myself) you are stuck all alone with nothing but your own thoughts and as I kept looking at the paint on my hospital room walls I remember getting angry, irrationally angry at the very walls themselves. I was so infuriated about my situation that I needed to express my emotions or I would explode in a fury of tears and curse words (well there definitely were some tears but reduced...and there was probably a few curse words if I am being completely honest). It was the middle of the night and all I had available at the time was a slightly used napkin and a pen. I opened that napkin wide and began writing, just pouring out all my anger and frustration and turning them into words. As I wrote I thought about how much I actually needed to be in that room, how much I needed those four walls. If I was at home at the time my pain could not have been controlled at all and I would have been in much more pain. I hated admitting that I needed those walls at all.
I am an optimist at heart, so on the last stanza I wanted to express how I knew that I would emerge from those four walls; I would eventually escape from that metaphorical dungeon and rejoin that epic adventure everyone else was on. I ended the poem with the realization that no matter what I know I will be back within those four walls in the future because I was born with a genetic illness that literally has no cure. To this day I hate those four walls, I have been back many times since writing the poem Four Walls and I know I will go back again sooner or later. I hate that I need to rely on the hospital to help me, but if I didn't have it available I would be left in such worse pain and it would take me even longer to recover. So even though I hate those walls with a passion, I truly am glad that they are there when I need them.
If you are curious to read my poetry you can purchase my poetry through www.amazon.com by searching for The Bright Side of Dark.
