Harm Reduction
Pain management is suicide prevention.
Maybe that's why my psychiatrist
was the one who finally treated it.
I was stuck in the pinball machine of medicine
being bounced from specialist to specialist—
arguing the cause, never treating the effect.
They lectured on prevention
like pain was a habit I could grow out of
but I was already drowning in it.
Turns out a will to live
can be measured in milligrams.
900mg of Gabipentan a day
keeps the suicidal thoughts away.
its not exactly poetry
but it works.
I went from being bed ridden
to driving my car
from googling assisted suicide
to planting something that may live longer than me
Kaycee Painter is a disabled poet from Dalton, Georgia, and serves as the web editor for Mouthful of Salt. She writes from the body, exploring what it means to endure in a world not built for you. Her work has appeared in TrashLight Press, Beyond Words Magazine, and The Nonbinary Review. You can find more of her work at https://kayceepainter.weebly.com/.
