Room Magazine

bed days

- LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINH­A

What were my mom’s pain days like? Were they all of them? She didn’t have weed, friends, a therapist, yoga, baths, Vicodin, T-3s, community acupunctur­e, fragrance-free or turmeric. She had wine, silence and a garden. She had hidden. Sometimes I lie in bed on a pain day with my sick and disabled friends a finger swipe away, my twin canes, my partner who loves me, my good bed, my nettles and my deep breaths, and still the pain in my knees and legs lives and shouts fire, and I wonder if my disability is me feeling all the pain my mom never had a chance to feel finally safe enough to come home and talk to me.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada