THIS is not a memememe post -- this is writing that I'd like to be evaluated for the writing, not just the content. It's probably going to end up at my writing class; I may read it for our public reading, when we have guests.

That said, keep in mind this is a first draft.

*****

Pain

It consumes me, devours me whole. It's become the primary focus of my every waking moment, an overlay obscuring everything else in my life, my mind, my body. Above everything I do, my overriding awareness is of pain. First, last, and always.

This is actual physical pain, mind you, not emotional or psychic pain. Not angst, not a broken heart, not war-induced terror. Physical pain, which started as searing sharp pain in my lower back, and has metamorphosed into unrelenting burning pulling aching pain down the entire length of my left leg, from my hip to my toes. The sole of my left foot is partially numb, a sensation which ranges from pins-and-needles to a cold dead feeling.

And the pain is constant. It's always there. No drugs, no position - sitting, standing, or lying down - alleviates it. I've been able to subdue it some days, but never to eliminate it. Even when I'm lying perfectly still, in the most comfortable position I've found (flat on my stomach, leg extended fully), the pain is still there.

It's almost an entity that has possessed my body, a demon that has taken up residence and refuses to leave. My losing battles with it leave me exhausted and emotionally ravaged. My personality has changed during the course of this constant aching burning pain. It's always there, it's the foremost thought in my mind, and as such, I find I can't deal very well right now with the demands other people put on me - simple, normal demands, like an innocuous conversation, like a question at work. I only have the energy and strength for this pain, and anything more is too much. So I snap. I snarl. I click my teeth together furiously, like a wounded animal who doesn't know how else to react other than to bite out of fear and hurt and helplessness.

I am not me. This pain has obscured me. I know I'm still in here, and there are occasional moments when I am able to break through the miasma of pain and ache and be me, react normally to a conversation or a smile. But those are very few and incredibly far between.

My body is betraying me. That's what I feel. But then I know, logically, that my body is trying to save itself, to tell me that there is something wrong, something that needs to be fixed right away. I know this. Dear God, I know this. I am doing everything I can, taking every opportunity presented, and it's not enough. I'm willing to have needles jabbed into my spinal column, steroids injected directly into the discs. I'm willing to have surgery, lasers - or maybe knives - cutting out the source of this pain.

I'm willing to do anything. To exorcise this demon that has taken over my life without my consent. To wrest control once again of my life, to be me again and able to fully engage with others without this endless searing pain getting between me and the world.

Steph, do you want deep editing/commentary, or general?

Fire away with anything. Really. Because by virtue of it being a first draft, it may end up a totally different creature. I just have to core-dump my first drafts so that they're out of my head. Then I can stand back and look at them and see where changes need to be made.

OK. Give me a bit to eat something, and I'll do some general takes on this.

It's a good piece, and I know from pain....

Steph, one thing I really like about it is that the whole rhythm of the piece, the way you've handled sentence structure and such, has a very appropriate raw immediacy to it.

Steph, email or here? What's your pref?

Whichever you want, Deb. I don't mind public feedback, as long as the phrase "illiterate git" is used sparingly....

Addendum: I've reached a comfortable pain-management point (finally!), so I'm going to take advantage and go to sleep. I'll look forward to your comment in the morning, Deb.

Illiterate git? Ha! As my Japanese friend Reiko said, when her husband was transferred to Teheran in the late seventies and assumed she'd go with him, "Fat-o Chance-u."

In re the piece, it's quite powerful, and I'm with Susan on the sentence structure adding immediacy to it. But I would make one general comment: I think the sheer quantity of adjectives weakens its impact. We have a cornucopia of adjectives: we have searing, sharp, unrelenting, burning, pulling, aching, and those are in the second paragraph. So the reader is reeling, and that's good, because it has the ring of an arrow hitting home, whang in the gold.

Third paragraph, "And the pain is constant. It's always there." OK, it's horrendous and it's always there and the details you gave of it made my own tum tighten up, because I live with numb-tingle-roar, so to me? Very real indeed.

However, you weaken the impact:

Fourth paragraph, there's more: constant, aching, burning. Followed immediately by "it's always there". If this is deliberate, an emphasis thing, could you clarify that, somehow? Because, as written, I'm reading and saying, OK, but we've established that and repeated it and described it up above, so....? The second half of that paragraph is sensational, by the way.

Paragraph 5 made me jump. Beautiful, simple, evocative and real.

Penultimate paragraph sums it up, perfectly. And it also makes the final paragraph yet another repetition, and I think not needed (or at least find a way to extract whatever will feed the penultimate, and combine them.)

Any help?

I think my absolute favorite moment is

So I snap. I snarl. I click my teeth together furiously, like a wounded animal who doesn't know how else to react other than to bite out of fear and hurt and helplessness

That's quite excellent, I think.

And I think that if I could change one thing, it would be the first paragraph:

It consumes me, devours me whole. It's become the primary focus of my every waking moment, an overlay obscuring everything else in my life, my mind, my body. Above everything I do, my overriding awareness is of pain. First, last, and always.

-- it is, I think, kind of overstatedly dramatic? (I am approaching this completely as a work of writing, as you asked, and as is, I think the only useful sort of feedback I can give. Still, I hope that I'm not coming across at all as callous.) If it were simpler, it might be a more compelling beginning. Is my feeling.