Spreading Ridges

Not yet willing to deal with the multitude of mild pains in my life

The message you have to change your life all too loud in my ear

The parallelipipedic ambulance — the perfect resonance chamber

As the clear blue skies disappeared

Behind the ambulance’s gray ceiling

My youth was going down the drain

Cliché-ridden rants blaring in my ear

Is this it? I wondered

Stupefied

With dilated pupils,

Am I going to die? I asked the paramedic

Who, just in case, planted a catheter in my arm

Metal and flesh mingling

From the continental drift of emotions buried

Deep below the ocean of numbness and depression

Erupted hope, gratitude, and an unsatiated hunger as

On top of all the voices, only one

Hit me like a tectonic blast:

I want to live.

. . .

A day before my birthday when I was in my late 20s, I got a lumbar herniated disc. It was one of the most terrifying medical experiences of my life, as one morning, I found myself immobilized on the floor by excruciating back pain — I had passed out from it — and I had to call myself an ambulance. I guess it was my body’s way of telling me that the stressful work I was doing at the time, which often involved me sitting for hours on end hunched over a computer, was just not worth it.

It’s experiences like these that make you realize what you truly want. During the following months, I made a series of life-altering decisions: changed countries, my career, and started a new relationship. Years later, I can confirm life is better, and I’ve learned to work around my injury.

© Lola Sense

. . .

Thank you for reading! A version of this poem was originally published on Medium. If you like my work, a tip, like, subscribe, or share would be very much appreciated! Follow me on Twitter and here are some more of my poems: