Phoenix Rising

I believe I have become more adept at negotiating the triggers of noise. My ears are highly sensitive. I still get upset and overwhelmed by extreme noise. It’s distressing because it hurts, and the overwhelming experience tends to affect my entire body not just my ears.

I believe at the moment I have a virus. Nothing very serious. Headache, lethargy, sore throat, runny nose. It’s made my low tolerance for noise even more depleted today. So I wrote this poem to try to let go of some of the pressures of todays assault of noise. Hopefully I will feel more tolerant tomorrow. There’s always hope!

The Chaos of noise.

9am the noisy neighbour is awake

The beat of his rap music heavy,

Assaulting every cell in my body.

My headache returning.

I try to practice piano lessons.

My fingers tripping over each other,

As I turn the volume up on my keyboard

Trying to tune out his anger.

It’s no good.

I’ll practise my choir songs instead.

iPad connected to Alexa,

Turn up the volume,

Warm up my voice.

La la la la la,

La La La La La,

La La La arrrggh La,

Arrrgg La.

My throat hurts too much to sing properly.

But I continue to play the songs.

They are drowning out,

The rap music from next door.

The eventual banging of his front door,

Two hours later.

Quiet.

Ahh breatheeee,

Everything is ok.

Sitting in the fading light of the evening,

Cat curled up on my lap.

Playing classical music quietly.

Neighbours dogs front and back,

Loudly yapping their discontent.

A fight erupting in the car park.

A neighbour trying to console,

A crying child on speaker phone,

A plane overhead.

A train rumbling past.

Someone using a drill.

A car with an irritating shrill exhaust,

Speeding through the estate.

What sounds like a badgers screeching.

I have a virus,

My nose is running,

My head is too full,

My brain feels like it’s exploding.

My ears feel like they are bleeding.

Cries from inside,

Make it stop.

Make it stop.

Please make it stop.

And I realise how much tension.

My body holds in the noise.

How my lungs are constricted.

With anxiety.

Take a breath into my belly.

Again deeper,

Breathe deeper.

All the noise.

Is dissipating,

Slowly,

My lungs are expanding again,

My body releasing,

The constriction,

In every cell,

From,

The chaos of noise.

Everything is OK.

Phoenix