Freight Train Coming, another migraine poem
by Christopher Clauss
Beautiful days
are meant for deep breaths,
for watching clouds
and commenting on how their shapes
roll into being,
now a turtle,
now an anvil,
the head of a dog,
now nothing recognizable.
The sky,
a shade of blue
it hasn’t been for weeks
and the sun glints
from the corner of an eye.
It’s nothing a squint
shouldn’t be able
to handle.
The trees are perfect
in that warm sun
and maybe a little fuzzy
around the edges,
like a dream sequence,
like someone is airbrushing all the parts
outside of the focal point.
Blurry is an intangible
that no effort can fix,
no rubbing of the eyes,
no amount of blinking will restore focus,
or clarity,
or the assurance that what’s there
is really not supposed to be blurred,
or is it blurred at all?
The periphery of the thought process,
those side thoughts
and facts held onto for a moment
phase out of tune,
and in,
and almost in,
and perhaps it isn’t the visual acuity
but the cognitive after all.
Perhaps there is a moment
of awareness,
of clarity
during which the pain
has not yet begun
and a proper decision
ought to be made
other than rubbing the eyes
other than blinking
or starting a sentence over.
Moments exist
as defined.
They do not linger
for anyone’s convenience.
These are transitive nouns,
electron clouds of always
not there anymore.
The moment passes
and somehow the dull ache of befuddlement
is seeping through the intrepid mass of skull.
Heavy enough
to stretch time into eternities,
it is all the constriction of a vice
without ever touching the cranium.
There is something there.
The searing pain
entry wound
to exit
is a fire-hot brand,
a piercing sword
that does not show in the mirror.
It moves and paths
like the real thing,
causes real shudders
a crippling debilitation
of facial muscles,
of nerve function.
There is a numbness,
a paralysis of lip
and teeth
and cheekbone.
The same mirror
that hides the sword
on which this eye socket,
this soft palate is impaled
now reveals a slack lip
a drooping eye
a humiliation of drool
of which nerves have courteously
not informed
the parietal lobe.
The sight of the reflection,
this stranger’s drooping face
under the din of confusion
the echo of pain
coming louder and more cacophonous
with each reverberation
is a startle response,
a self-check
a series of blinks
and a search for truth
to make clear sense of this inability
to sip from a cup,
this melting eye
looking back into one
that is experiencing
a different sensation of touch,
of nothingness.
There is no explaining
this cheek that looks all wrong,
that feels like less than empty,
like the arm
that can move just fine
but doesn’t feel like it’s even there.
The arm is a novelty.
The mirror’s reflection is identity,
brings in the question of truth.
Is that really my face?
Is this happening?
Should I be afraid now?
Am I going to die?
The doctor shines a light in the pupils
checks the pulse,
says to Smile like you normally smile
when nothing feels normal
or looks like it ought to.
The taste of aluminum
inundates tongue and throat
from a non-point source,
trades itself out
for a stale ginger,
then a taste not unlike the scent of patchouli.
The doctor attributes everything
to acute migraine,
to blood vessels pinching a nerve,
says to eat some food
with a lip that will not keep it in the mouth,
says to get some sleep
with a racing heart
and mind that still suspects
I will never wake up.
In time,
I am learning
to hear the winds blow,
to keep a finger on the tracks,
to feel the hum of the locomotive
long before it is upon me.
There is seldom, today,
the shock of surprise
when the freight train rumbles through
in the middle of a perfectly good conversation.
The foreknowledge
never stops the train in the distance
from barreling
right on through.
