60. What the Nerves Register We Cannot Say

While we sleep, we know: the streets get rearranged. All my old friends are staring through me now.¹
Who was I before this? I'm at war with my body, my closest friend.²
Why do things keep changing? Is it me who's rearranging?³
I hold you, my revolution,⁴
This world is a war⁵
And I am the trigger.⁶

I can't believe how I've been wasting my time.⁷

Wounds are all I'm made of. Did I hear you say that this is victory?⁸
If one believes that defeat is permanent, how can you face life?⁹
If the shadows exist for the sake of light, then pain exists for me.¹⁰
And the world counts loud to 10.¹¹
These are my days; this is how they stay.¹²

You've been more than patience, saying it's not a catastrophe.¹³
They say that things can just get better, and they probably will.¹⁴

A sharp transient feeling, in a single wave, becomes a hysterical wind.¹⁵
It's the nexus of the crisis and the origin of storms,¹⁶
The sound of all good things breaking.¹⁷
They will break you down until everything is normal.¹⁸
Psychosomatic. Addict. Insane.¹⁹
Rub until it bleeds.²⁰
No, we're not ready for fair distribution, just a terminal solution for²¹
Pain: You made me a believer,²²
But you'll not be my master; you're barely my guest.²³

The self is not so weightless, nor whole and unbroken. Engage with the pain as a motive,²⁴
Come in misery, where you can seem as old as your omens,²⁵
Pour your misery down.²⁶
Even when it hurts you, breathe it.²⁷

I've got so little left to lose²⁸
It's hard to even want to try. I'm beginning to think maybe you don't know:²⁹
I'm just as fucked up as they say,³⁰
Just maybe I'm to blame for all I've heard,³¹
I'm starting to deserve this.³²

Let me whisper in your ear: I hate myself and I want to die.³³
I could sleep for a thousand years.³⁴

Strychnine is good for what's ailing you.³⁵
A mainline to my vein leads to a center in my head.³⁶
Didn't make this up, I learned:³⁷
Close your eyes and count to 10. This is as good as it will get.³⁸
When nothing makes you feel good, then nothing makes you feel good.³⁹

I'm sick of waiting for a change that will never come my way.⁴⁰

Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head,⁴¹
My garden is flourishing yet my throat remains dry.⁴²
A scream becomes a yawn: I'll shut up and carry on.⁴³
I no longer go numb,⁴⁴
We are all in pain. If we commiserate, then we can share the weight.⁴⁵
Let me dangle awhile in this waiting room.⁴⁶

There's a lullaby for suffering and a paradox to blame.⁴⁷
You do it to yourself, and that's what really hurts.⁴⁸
You think you do no harm.⁴⁹
Look who's digging their own grave.⁵⁰
Any fool can easy pick a hole. I only wish I could fall in.⁵¹

What do you want with a devil like me? Am I like you?⁵²
Reality is treacherous; it's easy to misjudge.⁵³
Tell me how it all got so doubtful.⁵⁴

Doctor, can you pull my file?⁵⁵
My own inner cosmology has become too dense to navigate.⁵⁶
Cut open my sternum and pull my little ribs around you,⁵⁷
Dressed to suppress all kinds of sorrow.⁵⁸

She mutters, I'm fine, but words fail her.⁵⁹
This machine will not communicate these thoughts and the strain I am under.⁶⁰
Will you take the pain?⁶¹
Who's sick? Who's next?⁶²
If you're Rama, I'm Ravana.⁶³

It's true: I push too hard, I guess, to use whatever fuel is left.⁶⁴

It's your choice, she said. Take or let go.⁶⁵
So let go.⁶⁶

I am not who I used to be; I'm afraid this has just begun.⁶⁷
I focus on the pain. The only thing that's real.⁶⁸
I know that if you hide, it doesn't go away.⁶⁹

So once more around the track, another lap and I think I can get it back, to where we prove:⁷⁰
I've become what I most fear,⁷¹
I'm only faking when I get it right.⁷²

Audio Analgesia

Music listening can alleviate physiological and psychological stress, and stress influences the fluctuation of chronic pain, leading to the conclusion that music listening can positively influence pain processing (Linneman et al., 2015). The mechanisms of this "audio analgesia" remain indeterminate, as music listening can reduce perceptions of pain by distracting the listener from sensory intensities or by inducing a state of relaxation. However, most audio analgesia studies focus on the experience of acute pain, which is unlike the experience of chronic pain, which already alters how the subject processes sensory input.

In the first study of audio analgesia and chronically pained music listeners, Linneman et al. (2015) studied fibromyalgic women listening to a pre-recorded CD in everyday life settings to determine whether music listening reduces chronic pain intensity and increases control over chronic pain. Their study found that fibromyalgic patients' perception of pain intensity did not waver, an expected outcome given that the peripheral nervous system is responsible for nociception and audio analgesia is a product of the central nervous system. However, the subjects felt they had more control over their pain while deliberately listening to music. This was especially true for those who listened to music more frequently (paras. 33-37).

As a pain coping strategy, music listening might elevate mood, distract from pain signals, or diminish the affective impact of environmental stressors. This is, perhaps, the reason I can't survive my commute without my iPod. Registering too much, the nerves become overwhelmed.

Self-selected music has the most profound stress-reducing effects, so it stands to reason that self-selected or collaborative multimodal approaches to fibromyalgia treatment, including art therapy and music listening, would be similarly effective (Linneman et al., 2015, paras. 36, 38). The playlist presented here is an archive of songs I frequently listen to, dance to, and sing, in diverse settings and bodily states, that pertain to the experience of chronic painervation. Several of these artists are also chronically ill. Recombined song lyrics from this playlist create the found poem to the left, and the order of the playlist itself corresponds to the poem's organization. Composing found poetry imbues familiar artifacts with new meaning without overwriting the old, much like the constant becoming-anew of fibromyalgic existence.

Musical expression also fuels affective investment in social and political action, creates collectives around shared emotional states, and converges with social justice movements — like Dustin Gibson and Talila Lewis' "Disability Solidarity: A Living Playlist," a multi-form, evolving project that eschews the Eurocentric language of "disability" in cataloguing and commemorating Black disabled experience. Music is embedded in identity and cultural frameworks, capturing our experience, animating our struggle, mediating our sensorium. Musical expression, and perhaps any found poetry within it, can help forge understanding and community.

Listen, sing, or otherwise engage, and attend to your bodymind's response.