This is another poem about being poorly. I’m conscious that I’ve written quite a few poems and articles around this theme since the run of the year, but I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive me for getting a little bit obsessed with the failure of my heart.
Luckily, people are always very complimentary about these poems and I’ve received some incredibly supportive messages as I’ve been recovering, which has been a real help. I keep finding these poems tucked away in notebooks on scrap paper and figure that I might as well put them out as a blog. I’ve said this before, but if I don’t they’re just words on a bit of paper that no one other than me will read. Well, what would be the point of a blog in that case?
A Familiar Face Amazing how, after all this trouble and time, the answer could be hiding in plain sight. The thing you feared the most, yet least expected, the solution to the mystery you'd never have suspected has come back to haunt you, bring chaos where there was relative calm. For some time now, you've sensed its approach, felt the uncomfortable sensation of its hot breath on your neck. The thing you wouldn't name, but still recognised, the terror that you lived with, but couldn't look in the eyes lands a blow to leave you weak at the knees and grabbing at thin air for balance. So now, a new danger from a familiar face, as you fight against yourself, your own failing, knowing that whatever you do, whatever changes you make may not be enough and while all around you wish you well, offer love, support, concern, you have never felt so helpless, so frightened, so alone.
There were question marks, asterisks, scribbles and arrows all over this poem when I found it, which suggests that it was another one written in the early hours. The scribbles tell me that it might have been one I wrote after first deciding to go back to bed, but then sitting back down aware that there was another idea or another line still stuck in my head. I’d have been more sleepy than I realised, hence the mistakes and scribbles.
It’s another poem about being ill. This one focuses on the frustration I felt at the fact that my heart worries had come back to trouble me and the fear I had about just how bad I felt post operation.
When I first got poorly having had an episode of palpitations and dizziness in May of last year, I remember explaining to my wife that it frightened me and that I was determined not to end up back in hospital. A month later I was in hospital having tests on my heart. And then, just the other day I read a Facebook memory about a run I’d done in training for the last 10k race that I ran. It was early October of last year and I’d just done my last training run of about 12k and commented that I’d do anything at all to avoid anymore trips to the cardiologist. Sadly, less than a month on, I’d not only collapsed, but had been admitted to hospital to be told the next day that I’d have to have my pacemaker fitted. Life comes at you fast, as they say!
Fingers firmly crossed, but I feel better than I’ve felt in a while, despite a small setback about a month ago. Here’s to less heart-related poetry!
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