*trigger warnings regarding chronic conditions, including particularly serious ones

 

Migraine

I recognise

Sensory disturbance,

I’m calmer knowing what it is;

My brain

 

On fire,

Waiting

For full diagnosis

Thinking of Dad’s aneurisms,

Anxious,

 

My sight blurs

I am fire and ice

Pressures rise

Behind eyes;

I had brain damage at birth,

Now even light hurts,

 

Fragile, disconnect

Nana’s glass eye in water

Bobs up in my mind,

 

I ponder

How her mother died

Far too young

Leaving infants,

Did they have Elhers Danlos?

Is mine vascular?

 

Five more months to wait

Until I have the answer,

Vascular is rare

But when migraines steal my sight

It shifts perspectives

 

Into darker thoughts

When the light no longer hurts,

I glimpse hope’s return.

 

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch