Pain Snakes

She wondered if she would get used to this, the soreness like something swollen and tender underneath her ribs, the small twinge that came with taking deep breaths and the almost constant ache in her back that flares and fades like the tide sometimes drowning her, overwhelming and sometimes too far to reach. She could feel it coming, the shadow of pain, as she began to take shallow breaths knowing the expansion of her chest would soon hurt like a wrench ripping open her ribs. A snake of pain slithered down her left side and then dissolved. As opposed to her right side which was a pulsing ache that wouldn't go away.The throbbing in her ribs and back and the promise of more, of it paralysing her, prevented her from getting up from her chair, made her afraid of a shiver, sneeze, cough, or even laughter, anything that would cause her chest to expand and contract uncontrollably. It happened, washing over her fulfilling its promise, she couldn't make herself get up couldn't take in the air needed to raise her voice, she sat there helpless taking quick shallow breathes. It subsided enough that she forced herself to get up taking tentative steps and stopping dead in her tracks at a new pulse of her back. Talking, or rather the breath needed for talking was too much of an effort, so she sat silently waiting for the pills to take effect. She had taken double extra strength pills because this was ridiculous. Her father came in and talked to her about exercises and strengthening her core and all she could do is focus on breathing and not breathing too deeply. It was preventing her from enjoying being awake, because it was all she could think and feel, the excruciating tendrils that reach across her shoulders and down her right arm to her elbow down her spine to her lower back. The agony clouds her perception, colours her emotions, tints her feelings and taints her thoughts with a sour taste. The pain is poisoning her; leaking into her mind and adding emotional mental anguish to the physical torture her body is subjecting her to.