Jelly Brain, Carina Lopez Segura, oil painting
this pain has possessed in a long time. Four years have passed since the headaches began, and although they are no longer constant, the pain comes and goes like the tide, as I, like Fitzgerald’s boat, am borne back into my past. I don’t know whether this episode is a blessing or a curse for my writing, or perhaps a simple manifestation of the pain I can’t quite capture in words. I’ve never been good at describing pain in doctors’ offices either, removed from the sensation. But here and now, my head feels like a desolate beach, its sand the same color as 82
the slate-gray sky. The pain fades for a moment, and I allow myself to hope that the tide has receded, but this is only a swell, a temporary respite before the wave crashes, violent against rocky shorelines. The pain drips down the back of my throat, whether to elicit the sob or the bile that is rising, I cannot tell. The pounding continues, my internal barometer broken, pressure building instead of dropping as the storm rages on. The headache clinic felt like the first sign of a lighthouse after months at sea; finally,
