Play Dead
Chronic fuck slug
Chronic floor sleeping
Chronic fist seething
Chronic food swallowing
Chronic feuding skin
Chronic foreseen surrender
Chronic failure synonym
Chronic sel(f)-inlictednes(s)
Chronic found inner-piece(s)
Chronic forcibly sending love (&) (kisse(s))
Chronic we (f)ucking mi(s)s you
Chronically how have you been? ( )
Chronic marked a(s) Interested on (f)acebook
Chronic (f)ool’(s) errand
Chronic 2 (Th)e(s)salonians 3:10
Chronic let’(s) sort your Fatigue before your ADHD as that seems to be what is letting you down Chronic As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning (f)rom uneasy dream(s) he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
Chronic we (f)eel it that due to the fact you’ve mi(s)sed so many appointments and continue to struggle with your organisation that it would be best if you self-referred back into fatigue management when you’re able to gain more from it.
Chronic i(f) you try to (s)ip too much water when you take all the pills at once they melt and let me tell you the taste is fucking horrendous
Chronic what are you in (f)or (you don’t (s)eem fucked up enough to be in this waiting room)? Chronically too tired to read but I will tell you I am writing (so) help me god (if) I admit I am not Chronically awake.
Chronic the current expected waiting time (f)or your letter is (s)ix weeks
Chronic PIP-CHALLENGING-DECI(s)ION-SAMPLE-LETTER.pd(f)
Chronic
Chronic
Chronic
“Explain how you cope on both good days and bad days and how you manage over a longer period of time (like a week). This gives the DWP a better picture of how you cope most of the time.
Make it clear: if you have good days and bad days, how often you have bad days, if you have bad days more often than not…” – National Association of Citizens Advice Bureau concerning question five of fifteen of the PWP claim form.
“You’ve done ( ) all day.”
Maybe I want them to see me like this?/The refrigerator hum/stare/inertia/unread instructions/ my life can/no/will/be uncomfortable/and loved/when my bed bruises/
do the thing the moon/does/did/maybe’d/I can let them watch and compare/and fall into me/ leave out four hours/of my day/as an offering/to whoever is keeping count/it is not a sin/to lie down before you die.
Pascal Vine is a UK performance poet from the Somerset Levels who graduated with honours from Bath Spa in Creative Writing and Religion in 2018. He has headlined poetry nights across the South West and has been published by Bad Betty, Three Drops, and Verve in various anthologies. He is disabled, nonbinary and tired.
You can purchase Good Listeners, Burning Eye, from his online store.
listen to your soul’s susurrations
listen,
to the discordantly desperate hammering inside your body.
to the persistent panging pleading within your bones.
listen,
and heed the hasty hollering of your atrophy.
and the ragged heaving of your organs’ groans.
understand,
that though Change’s winds may feel constant and turbulent,
it’s Father Time who cracks the air with despair.
listen,
the crimson green that you’re clutching with discontentedness,
is lacerating our collective welfare.
breaking through the battering lashings of exhaustion and overwhelm,
a quiet, passionate voice buds within you.
it exasperatingly sprouts and presses and pouts, saying:
“we’re forever dogged!
it’s forever dusk!
our soul’s been over-tillaged!
you’re becoming but a husk!
we need a rest
we need a break please!
our brittle bones are steeped in ache.”
as you listen,
as your body knows,
you feel the gloom fritzing, glitching as you slow.
and before the muggy malodorous stench of The Grind’s breath permanently prostrates you- it’s
interrupted
by the soothing, balming, rich notes of a chorus,
the scent of which your eyes follow,
until they rest on a decadently carved, free-standing cusped arch, glowing
with the leaves’ shimmering timbre.
your soul chirps with susurrations of revivified hope:
“we are free! we are free!”
as the winds of Change carry you to the arch’s welcoming embrace,
your mind, your body, and your spirit are lifted with the thrumming of the dawn’s sweeping bass
ringing through this scalloped way.
pearlescent words extend:
we are here together.
we have each other.
you are not alone.
we lovingly endeavour,
to foreground your tether,
to your earthly home.
nothing can sever,
or minimise the measure,
of reciprocity’s echo.
so step through and we’ll weather,
time’s waters together.
you are not alone.
you are not alone.
– – – ajae – – –
– – – ajae – – – is a griot exploring ecology, imagination and being through speculative fiction. You can find them on Instagram: @non_binoiry