Subjective Units of Distress Scale 1-10

College truly saved me. It brought me physical and mental distance from the tightly woven abusive nest. It reflected back at me my gifts, my strength, my empowered femininity. I met people who respected me and were interested in my ideas, my viewpoints. Even if, perhaps especially since, I was eccentric.
~disabled poet Jill Khoury

Another mentor poem today! You know those pain scales they use in the hospital? Make your own scale, any topic. Off the top of my head, I can imagine ones for love and boredom. (I should do one for my One Little Word: generosity.)

Subjective Units of Distress Scale 1-10
by Jill Khoury
(with 5 bonus units for additional introspection)

1 – emotions are just neurochemical swirls happening inside your body

2 – the wind rattles the windows at celeste’s house

3 – the slug and bore in our voices

4 – at the library 100 ringtones go off at once

5 – all of the above but add pain; specify whether the pain is aching, acute, anvil, arrow strike, burning, chronic, clamp, electric, fetal, folding, nebula, neuropathic, nociceptive, panting, pressing, radicular, spasmodic, stabbing, stuttering, tornado

6 – atmospheric disturbance like bees chanting a death hymn

7 – in the terrorwood my anxiety lights a fire

8 – st. dymphna with lilies, holding a sword

9 – time is a monstrous organ that breathes us...


read the rest here

8- Saint Dymphna, prior to being beheaded by her father,
with a demon under her sword

************

Beyond Literacy Link has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Carol!