Pain Inside My Head

A sign appears.
Just as holy men before me would search the sky for omens
which determined fates, my sign rises in the east,
the first unmistakable sign of attack this day.

Bright, cheery sunlight streams through the trees,
Delights in the patterns it drops on dappled leaves,
and sprinkles dancing sparkles on the blue sweet
waters of the bay.

My sun has inspired Einstein, Hawking and Hubble telescopes;
my bright bauble ball in the sky.

But something is wrong with the sun today.

My eyes begin to squint, squeezing down hard
 as I try to turn away from the suddenly harsh, glaring,
 garish light. The attack has begun.

The light, once so beautiful, once so serene, once so comforting,
 now sears through my eyeballs; with each ray the pain strikes, sharp as swords
 cutting through my brain, every ray a laser strike,
 setting off IED's inside my head.

A frantic search ensues for the darkest pair of sunglasses;
In my purse? in my car? Where are they?

Shades are drawn in frantic paces,
Ice at the ready,
Anything to darken, darken, darken, cool, cool, cool.

My ears have now joined the cacophony of pain.
Awful Sound reverberates
 round and round inside my head, making each note a searing echo,
  robbing me of any analytical thinking, robbing me of hope, of peace.

Light and sound
now have a tangible, physical stranglehold.
Pain inside my head.

Please, any noise, any light at all, just go, go away. I just want to hide.
I just want to die.

When the ER doctor's little beam of torture starts searching for any answers
inside my eyeballs and invades my darkened haven, it's so hard to
stifle my screams.

Within the IV are the triptans, or the morphine, or the ergotamines;
 many drugs conjured up by this season's holy men to fight the blinding lights,
 the torturous sounds.
" What's your pain level now, dear?" and the higher the number,
 the more the little vials are emptied into my veins. Hours pass,

 until slowly,
 the light and the noise retreat; back to every day volumes.

For a while.

Sheer exhaustion follows. I feel wounded, trampled upon.

Give me sleep.

The twisted world of sun and shadow begins to fade. In the nothingness of that
ethereal world, I sleep.

I sleep.