Battle Scars: Glimpses of a Warrior

By Kristi G.

In this collection of poetry, the reader explores the true meaning of love, inescapable vulnerability, and the agony of managing a painful chronic illness punctuated by hospitalizations and frequent bouts of pain. The words are pure and illuminating; the vivid imagery is powerful, resulting in ones thought process being challenged to discover new ways of understanding love and despair and how to emerge from darkness to light. The poet challenges the reader to view the possible cracks dwelling inside their heart, mind, and body as windows allowing in the light, as opposed to unwanted defects. A reliance on God, represented as ones ultimate spiritual and secure base, provides the hope to persevere and nourish the indomitable will. Glimpses of Gods concern for us is revealed when one sees the small, innocent, and beautiful rose growing between the cracks in the sidewalk. The images, purity of complex emotions, and irony in the poetry illuminates how one comes to see how their life transforms. The reader experiences shifting emotions evoked by the penetrating, powerful words that resonate within and which separates the reader from the ordinary, current reality. In the end, the poets weaving of words, imagery, and aesthetic qualities, revealing the truth, will compel the reader to harness the strength and optimism to emerge with renewed confidence to pursue meaningful living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984534576

Book preview

Warrior Life

Lifestyle

Sickle cell sickles my cells and complicates my life

More often than not filling it with pain and strife

Making simple tasks seem larger than life

Larger than me and makes it much harder to see

The sun through the clouds

The fun through the shroud

Of pain

Dulling the natural beauty of rain

Because I know what it brings

And goals become much harder than they seem

It often convinces me that I will never attain my dreams

And make them my reality

Because the thing is, that to society

It seems as though I’m lazy, unmotivated, a liar and drug addicted

When really all I seek is relief

And all I want is the chance to be what I was born to be

And to have the world see all of the good in me

The beauty within how we handle our struggle

The way we shine in spite of how we suffer

We deserve for people to believe

That our fight is real, not just some drama we conceived

Or an imaginary enemy that we perceive

Sickle cell warrior is not merely a catchy phrase or a meaningless title

We are warriors in the fight for our lives

It means enduring and overcoming, making sure our spirits survive

It’s advocating and praying, and not letting our worth be denied

Sickle cell warrior isn’t just a name meaning sick child

Being a sickle cell warrior is so much more, it’s a lifestyle

Plight of a Cell

Swimming, racing, rushing

Got to get the oxygen there

Swerving, skidding, sickling more by the second

No clotting, avoid the clumps

Can’t crash, can’t hit the walls

Can’t break, can’t stall

No bumper zone here

Everything sticks, everything clogs

The cells work so hard to keep me alive,

To keep me in existence

And still, it can all diminish;

Evaporate into nothingness

And it can all end… at anytime

Now, tomorrow, next week, next year

Sometimes it ends in a flash

Other times it can take nearly a lifetime

The uncertainty is torture

But the helplessness is what’s truly painful

Crisis

Pain, agony, suffering

Die wicked deviance

Evil deformity, sickening mutation

Feel, hurt, cry, misery

Cursed cells with the jagged edge

Piercing pain, bruised vein

Sharp needle, white lights

Warm liquid, burning vein

Numbing, erasing wicked pain

Round cells carry oxygen

Twisted cells carry suffering

Hurry liquid, hurry up, run

Bring me ease and sleep to come

Escape, sweet escape I pray

Pain, I beg you, please stay away

The Beast Within

My body is on fire,

        but only from within

No one can see with certainty

The burning going on inside of me

This searing pain is a living, breathing thing

An out of control monster,

        created from my own mutated blood cells

This angry, spike covered demon runs amuck inside of me,

        leaving pain in its wake

And his triumph is in my every ache

From my neck to my hips, my shoulders, even the bottoms of my

        feet

I live on the brink of constant agony

But I will not let this demon have me

Only God rules this woman here

But still, it remains to torture me,

        although I follow only Him

God gives me the strength to fight it every day

And when its just too much to bear,

        I put my faith in fervent prayer

A demon lives inside of me,

        but it will not win

Only God has the power to silence the beast within

Struggle of a Sickled Cell

You LOATHE me, you HATE me

This I know

And I do not blame you…

I cause you pain, I cause you misery, and make you cry

My kind has manifested, spread, and dwelled

Within you since birth

You’ve learned to live with me yet you refuse to respect me

And I know why

I HINDER you, I RESTRICT you

And you are reminded that

IN ALL THAT YOU DO I FAIL YOU

Yet I try, I struggle, I work so hard

My struggle exists

In avoiding the walls as I swim

My struggle you do not understand

BUT MY PAIN YOU SUFFER

You recognize and acknowledge

My flaws you curse

You think of me and my kind as a poison

But we do our best… TO KEEP YOU ALIVE

My life I’ve struggled to be

strong, circular, to flow with ease

My life I’ve remained sickled and clotted

Jagged and weak

MY LIFE IS MY STRUGGLE TO SERVE YOU

and still without fail you curse me endlessly

This I know

The Feeling

I can feel it slipping away

More rapidly than before

Each disfigured cell that dies

Snatches another moment of my life

And I can feel it

…my life slipping away

I was never scared of it when I was