Environmental Illness

by Cynthia Riecken
(Age 19)

Enter the world of the nightmare
      Where the sights and the sounds and the smells
      cause misery and pain that lasts day
      after day, that lasts months upon years unrelenting.

Enter the world of the nightmare
      Where breathing and eating are crimes.
      Punished by pain beyond reason
      And losing the use of your mind.

Enter the world of the nightmare
      Is there no safe place for you?
      A place without perfumes and free from all smoke
      A place without pollens and molds.
      A place without bug sprays or car exhaust
      Can such a place really be?

Enter the world
      where touch is forbidden to you
      Harmless no longer these objects
      will torture
      with nothing to handle, oh what will you do?

Enter the world of the nightmare!
      where smelling becomes a great curse,
      Everywhere haunted by odors that sicken -
      Invisible, violent attacks
      Why do the objects once held so dear
      cause so much havoc within?

Enter the world of the nightmare
      where all the pleasant memories cease.
      Selective amnesia of all but the worst
      render you fearful indeed!
      Exposed on a pedestal in a dark room
      Are many eyes upon you?
      Jeering and laughing and pointing at you
      or worse, are you there all alone?

Enter the world of the nightmare
      Alone so alone in your cell
      imprisoned so deep in your body
      Can anyone know you're still there?
      Buried alive by the blood that was made
      to protect you from foreign attacks.

Enter the world of the nightmare
      Where the boredom and guilt and the fear
      throw their attacks in unceasing rebukes
      against one who has ceased to be you.
      Can others love this strange, foreign one
      who demands and who takes but can't give?
      But if those around me should give up the
      fight, what chance would there be that I'd live?

Enter the world of the nightmare
      Where your stomach and throat and your head
      Your ears and your eyes and your joints
      and your limbs ache from the swelling within.
      Pressure and pain, numbness and dread,
      Day after day after day.
      The future unknown; the past but a dream
      Only now and its unceasing pain.

This is the world of reality for the universal reactor.

HOME | ABOUT US | ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS | ALLERGY | CFS/CFIDS | FIBROMYALGIA | PRAYER | CONTACT

© Share, Care and Prayer, Inc.