These poems are published as part of the Amplifying Disabled Voices special section, selected by editors Christopher Heuer, Marlena Chertock, and Gregory Luce.
 

Groundhog Day

There is nowhere more confining than a brain with PTSD.
I would strip off my neurons if I could, or flee
from the crackle of activated synapses
reanimating dead moments in relapses
and if I could remember who she was before
all the damage was done, I would close the door
on the in between then and now
but I don’t know how.
 

The Role of a Lifetime

Her field of vision narrows;
the periphery expands and looms
with a pressure that compresses.
Sound and light squeeze.

The children’s voices are microphones.
Her spouse’s questions are cymbals.
A band plays in her pounding chest,
stomping, valves flapping like flags.

Her daily performance is Oscar-worthy.
While the stage collapses beneath her,
she smiles and pretends,
until the curtain shuts abruptly.

The intermissions are sudden.
The act lasts until it doesn’t.
Everyone whispers: what’s wrong,
as she is carried off the stage.

Like they didn’t watch the backdrop shifting,
the weight of the walls crushing.
They believed she was stronger,
because she always holds them up.

Pamela Mathison-Levitt is a disabled writer living in the DMV. She has a master’s degree in psychology in education from the University of Pennsylvania and is passionate about homeschooling her children. Her poems and essays reflect her love of nature, her Unitarian Universalist faith, and her experiences with mental health and chronic illnesses, including: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, among other conditions. Mathison-Levitt’s work has appeared in Mid-Atlantic Review, Exposed Brick Literary Magazine, Pen in Hand, Emerald Coast Review, Literary Mama’s blog, Anthology of Appalachian Writers and other publications. You can find her work on Facebook at Lines and Branches or on Instagram @pmmlevitt.

Featured image in this post is, “Spotlight (14871682502)” By Rikard Edlund: Bass, licensed creative commons via Wikimedia Commons.