Introduction: Psoriatic disease, short bowel syndrome, myotonic dystrophy, a congenital and progressive disability that limits my mobility, severe damage from radiation treatments, more damage from metastatic cancer therapies, and ankylosing spondylitis — most of the time, I manage. I find ways to cope. But then this wave comes, and I’m struck down by sadness, jealousy, and a crushing sense of loss. I know these flashes of anger are not unwarranted, yet they often leave me drowning in feelings of failure. Sometimes, I turn this anger and sense of failure inward, resenting my weakness, simply because I’m not able to cope as well as I think I should. And so, this poem rises from the quiet, intractable ache of being human.
When Silence Trembles
by Jan Mariet
Let me be sad. Let me be angry.
Let me feel jealous and cheated
and swallowed up by all the ugly emotions
that come before acceptance
or that come crashing back on a bad day.
Sometimes, I just can’t make peace
that my life is chained to chronic pain,
crushing fatigue, and GI horrors most people
couldn’t imagine in their worst dreams.
Most days, I hold it together. I deal
with it. I even accept it.
But then there are days when it slams
into me like a tsunami,
leaving me terrified, furious, heartbroken,
and drowning in confusion.
On those days, nothing I do
can quiet the anguish because it roars
too loudly.
Chronic illness shakes me
to the marrow, twisting my cries
into silent, unheard whimpers.
