Stealth
Sleep patterns disrupted. Went to bed with heartburn last night and was certain I was dying. I’ve never had pain like that before, so close to my heart. Not physical pain, anyhow. Plenty of the kind of pain that starts in anguish and for which there is no physical wound or ailment.
Funny how the brain is, yeah? It works on us in our sleep and tell us the unreal is real and we feel it as if it is so. And, sometimes, it works on us as we wake. Wave upon wave of heartburn and anxiety over that which isn’t. A balm, I think, sometimes. A balm to cover the actual atrocities–the ones we can’t fix because they are so large, so woven into the fabric of who we are and where we’ve been. The ones we feel so powerless to change.
Or maybe not so much a balm as a distraction. This is where the story is, your head tells your heart. This is where the grievance starts and this is how it is perpetuated. And it sends currents and waves of pain over and through the body in strange abstractions of the lived reality, twisting and turning over slights and miscommunications with loved ones and strangers alike, until the pain … is just there. A constant companion.
But this is also how it works, that brain, that stealth bomber of distraction. It can feed and fester on the slights, or it can find its place at the banquet table overflowing with the foodstuffs that grow our joy, compassion, and possibility. Mercy. Grace. Love.
What a wondrous vessel this is, the body that houses such ferocious wildness and trots it about in slacks and sensible shoes.
Tina L B Porter 
Beautifully spoken truth, very helpful to read someone else’s understanding and enlightening. Thank you!
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I’ve often had nights as you described but couldn’t put it into words. Well done!
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