*I usually don’t go for rhyming poetry, but this seemed to write itself today. John’s birthday was yesterday and by bedtime it had become particularly difficult. Sometimes, it’s true, migraines are emotional, stress and fear leaking from the heart to the mind. And so.

New snow, that breathless bright white

Usually brings joy, but some birthdays bite.

The soft sensitive sponge that is my brain

Absorbs others’ guilt, sadness, panic, pain.

So today I wake with my head at an eight

Using DHE and Ativan, I am able to evade my fate.

Covers pulled up tight, the blinds closed

Children go to school, I continue to doze.

Life passes by: the air crisp, cars roar

My heart squeezes, still. I can’t face it anymore.

~elizabeth

Asia and Me.