Everything to Gain

This week’s A+ student is Roxanne from Unintentionally Brilliant. Roxanne’s story, “In Therapy,” was intentionally brilliant as she expertly tells the tale of a troubled young woman. Roxanne’s choice of opening sentence for this week’s class promises to generate some more creative and off-the-wall writing. She chose Kelle Groom’s book I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl whose opening line is:

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne.

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne.  There's no pain, just the air surrounding me, lifting me like a balloon floating into nothing but the morning sky.  

I hate that.

Pain is my drug of choice. I want to feel pain.  Pain gives me a rush.  It makes me feel alive, energized, successful.  I crave pain like heroin.  I will do anything to feel pain.   I will pinch my toes, until they turn blue. I will stick a pin into my thigh.  I will hold myself up while my arms burn with exertion.  When I can suddenly feel those pins and needles, I scream.  But it's a scream of triumph, not despair.  The alternative is the numbness of dead tissue. The pain, overwhelming as it is, means that there's still a chance, and I am determined.

I will walk again.

Right now, however, I am waking up in the recovery room of a hospital, and they've given me morphine.  I am barely conscious, face down and looking at the floor, but I know the familiar, numbing feel of the drug.  My doctor is well-meaning, but he doesn't know that morphine and I are old enemies.  I can face any obstacle except eternal numbness.

I am weak now from the removal of more tumors, but when I can, I will fight this numbness, just like I've fought for every single thing I've ever had in my life.  I will rip out this cursed IV if I have to, so I can have my pain.