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Writer's pictureSJ Bernstein

What You Don’t See

What you see is the hour when I’m functional

Going to the store

Driving a car

Getting lunch

What you see are the moments that I push though

And pretend

Ad know I’ll pay for it later.


What you don’t see is that later

The before and the after and all the other hours

Of the day and night

When I’m laying still as a stone

Unable to do more than shift around in bed

Unable to do more than wait as the days creep by.


What you don’t see is the price I pay for that trip to the store

For those extra 10 minutes on my feet

For those few moments of feigned normality.


We might get lunch together

On the same day that I spend the whole evening and night

In the ER.


And you would never know

Because I seem so normal.


You can’t see it

But I do

It’s not just that I’ll pay for it later

I’m paying for it now too.


Sitting and standing and moving

And worst of all bending

Every single moment

Is spinning spinning spinning

Until I lose my self so deep

In fogged mind and fogged body that

That I catch my fingers in the scissors

And it takes so long to process

That by the time it does

I’ve already finished cutting

That’s how far gone I am.


How do I explain the cost of every moment?

The calculation behind my stance during every conversation

The need to cut them off in order to sit down

Or lay down

Because to stand any longer is more than my body can bare.


How do I explain that no I wasn’t ok during our trip out

Or whatever it was we did today

I was just holding it together

Because I can do that

For a few hours

And pay later

And I do

Pay



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